


The Unseen Toska

by Badpenny



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asgard (Marvel), Beta Wanted, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes-centric, Community: norsekink, Demons, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Heavy Angst, Horror, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paranormal, Post-Recovery Bucky Barnes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV), Protective Bucky Barnes, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Semi-Public Sex, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Top Bucky Barnes, Vaginal Sex, Valkyries, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:26:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 62,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28000881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badpenny/pseuds/Badpenny
Summary: Bucky Barnes is haunted by what he has done, what they made him do. But in all those years as Hydra's slave he wasn't alone. He left someone behind and now the time has come for him to repay that debt. However he was stupid to think they'd ever really let him get away.Velletta, the Last of Asgard's valkyrie, has been a prisoner on Midgard for too long. She longs for home, she longs for vengeance, she longs to be worthy once more...but, in time, it will cost her her heart.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s), Steve Rogers & Original Female Character(s), bucky - Relationship
Comments: 20
Kudos: 7





	1. Phase 1: Chapter 1- Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go again! 
> 
> So after Mind's Eye, I can safely say I have the writing bug. Unseen Toska is going to feel slightly different I hope. It will be packed with horror and action and twists and turns and ... well, you'll have to keep reading to find out. 
> 
> I didn't think I would be posting the first chapter this soon but as more come out I shall update the chapter numbering. 
> 
> Enjoy.

_ Blood pounded in his ears.  _

_ Drum beats. Drums of war. Marching feet. Fires, smoke in the back of his throat.  _

**Bucky coughs and retches, lost in the abyss of his nightmare, his body convulses. He claws at the bedsheets, soaked through with sweat.**

_ Sulphur is thick in the air as he walks through the heat haze. He flinches, drums again. His head aches, pounding behind his eyes.  _

_ The corridor swirls in front of his eyes, shimmering underneath layers of acrid smoke. His hand skims the wall to keep himself from falling.  _

_ The Asset follows a small man wearing a green lab coat. It is too big for him, hanging off his small frame, it hits the top of his standard issue boots. The man visibly shivers and draws his coat around him tighter. It is still damp from the blizzard that raged outside but despite the clawing heat of the concrete bunker, the man trembled anyway as if something hung in the air.  _

_ Long corridors, there are no windows. Fluorescent lights cast a sickly glow over the concrete walls. They are mossy and wet in places. The Asset wrinkles his nose at the damp smell, it mixes with the sulphur and ash in the air.  _

**He retches again. Bucky’s feet flail out, his heels digging into the mattress as his spine arches as if shocked by electricity.**

_ His handler hesitated at a large iron door.  _

_ SSR Grade 3 Bulkhead, reinforced with lead.  _

_ He shakes his head. These kinds of thoughts hurt: memories that he didn’t know he had.  _

_ He wished he’d been allowed a gun. His fingers itched to feel the familiar weight in his arms. He knew what it was to hold a gun, to feel its kick back. A gun would protect him from whatever was behind that bulkhead- Whatever it was, the hands of his handler trembled as he reached for the locking mechanism.  _

_ ‘Complete your mission. Do Hydra proud.’ Even as he spoke, his voice sounded thin, sweat beaded on the man’s brow.  _

_ The door opened. A chilly hiss of air as the seal was broken.The hair on the back of the Asset’s neck stood up.  _

_ The noise, the smell, the pounding of the drums...in the air, inside his head. The Asset fights not to flinch back. The sulphur stings his eyes. He gags, forcing vomit back down his throat.  _

**‘NO! Not in there! Please, don’t make me…!’ Bucky screams, his voice high with the sheer unbridled panic that he is reliving.**

_ ‘De igne cinis _

_ Duo enim maledice ac maligne, _

_ Una enim fractionis, _

_ Malebolge tepidum vigili…’ _

_ Chanting! The endless chanting. The Asset’s ears bled, drums pounding around the inside of his skull. His hands shook, his muscles ached _ . _ He fights not to claw off his own ears, his eyes...anything to make it all stop. Make it go away! _

**‘Anywhere but here!’ A frightened voice screamed into the darkness, fighting against the hands that tried to hold him against the mattress.**

_ Hours? Days? He had no idea how long he had been standing in the dark chamber. Disembodied voices repeating their endless words.  _

_ ‘ _ _ Qui pereunt, et avare rapiat, _

_ Cecidit, et resurrexit: _

_ Ferrum conteram ut rotam, _

_ Ut confletur in flamma; Novum sinistram.’  _

_ Cold on his hands. Dark scarlet in the dim flickering light. A gasp leaves the Asset’s mouth before he realises.  _

_ Organs. Blood and bone and sinew ...some kind of animal. He hopes it's an animal...it must be some kind of animal..it's laid, displayed at his feet. The Asset is stood in a circle of blood, hand drawn, crude- he faces an altar.  _

_ ‘ _ _ Vetus Angelus in mundo, _

_ Perierat, et inventus est _

_ Tu rumpe noctis; et conlidam in a pugnus in mundo.’  _

_ A pair of sad eyes shine out of the darkness, watching him sadly. ‘Wake up. Wake up…’ _

**

‘For Christ's sake! Bucky, wake up!’ Steve shouts desperately as he hauls Bucky’s body over onto his side. 

Bucky scrambles with the front of Steve's t-shirt as he vomits violently onto his bedroom floor. His body spasms, his body retching until there was nothing left in his stomach. 

‘Steve…’ Bucky manages to gasp out weakly, falling back into his damp pillows. 

Someone turned the light on. Sam and Wanda hover uncertainly in the doorway. Sam wanted to help, edging closer but Wanda grasped the back of his shirt, holding him back. 

‘Can you see it?’ Sam asked in a hushed tone. 

‘Only images but that is enough.’ She’d glimpsed the horror that was running through Bucky’s mind and it chilled her to the very core. 

‘Bucky, it’s going to be okay. It was just a dream,’ Steve said softly, pressing a glass of water into Bucky’s trembling hands. 

His eyes are wild, pupils blown wide as they flick fearfully across Steve’s face. Dark hair plastered to his sweaty brow, lips almost bloodless; the only colour on Bucky’s face is the blood smeared across his chin from where he had bitten his tongue. 

‘You don’t understand, Steve, I saw it!’ Bucky gasps through clenched teeth. 

‘Buck, it was a nightmare. You’re fine, it was just…’

‘NO!’ Bucky roared, with a snarl of frustration, he snatched the glass out of Steve’s hand and hurled it at the wall.

Tentatively, Wanda took a step forward. Sam stayed close to her side. ‘Then tell us. Tell us what you saw.’ 

Bucky blinked at her, his mouth beginning to move but no words coming out. His throat was hoarse and dry from screaming, his mouth tasted foul but he forced himself to speak, pulling Steve closer by the fabric of his pyjama top. 

‘I saw her...Steve, she needs us.’ 

***

The sun had barely risen over the Avenger’s Compound in upstate New York. It didn’t matter, Bucky barely slept these days. With memories clawing at his brain like ghosts clinging to life, Bucky barely knew where he began and the Winter Soldier ended. 

He watched the team silently as they filed into the conference room. Bucky tried to look bored, small, unconcerned by their side long glances and cautious gazes. The Winter Soldier however, he noticed everything, he couldn’t help it. Bucky couldn’t turn off that side of his brain just as much as he couldn’t stop the Winter Soldier calculating the force needed to sever an arterial vein using a HP pencil. 

‘ _ 7ozs if you avoided the hard tissue _ .’ A cool voice whispered in the back of Bucky’s head. He pinched the bridge of his nose hard, before turning his attention back to staring out the window. 

Stark was sitting at the head of the table, dropping a white tablet into a glass of ice water. He grumbled about the early hour as it fizzed and hissed. Natasha nursed a can of fiery energy drink in one hand and a donut in the other, she was still wearing a pair of loose pyjamas. Vision hovered around offering people top-ups of coffee. Wanda sat next to Stark. She was wrapped in a blanket watching the back of Bucky’s head pensively. 

Bucky shifted. He could feel her eyes lingering. He couldn’t blame her, he would think he was crazy too. If he was in Starks’ shoes he sure as hell wouldn’t have let him out of a lead lined cell, let alone in the same building as him. Bucky couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Wanda to see all the messed things going on in his head as well. He pitied her more than he pitied himself. 

‘I’m glad you're all here,’ Steve began in a business like manner. He stood at the front of the conference room. He looked fresh, showered and shaved, far too perky for this time in the morning. ‘If you all turn to page 3 in your dossiers….’ 

Tony’s head thunked as his forehead hit the table. Natasha threw up a rude gesture with her hand. 

‘Steve, it’s a bit early for a word like ‘dossiers’,’ Sam smiled apologetically. 

Bucky huffed impatiently, turning away from the glass wall. ‘And what about Angel Fire?’ 

‘What?’ Tony blinked slowly as if his head was clearing. 

Natasha sat up with interest. ‘Angel Fire doesn’t exist.’ 

‘Says who?’ Steve challenged, crossing his arms over his broad chest. 

Nat sat forward, gesturing with her half eaten donut. ‘Everyone in the intelligence community. It’s a myth, an urban legend.’ 

‘So was the Winter Soldier,’ Steve interjected, cocking his eyebrow. 

‘Alright, enough of the Murder She Wrote act. Show us what you got.’ Tony reclined in his chair nonchalantly. 

Anyone would have thought that he was bored but Bucky knew better. Years as the Winter Soldier had taught him to memorise a person's tells. Tony’s was subtle. You needed to be able to see under the bravado but it was there. The way his hand bounced as if he was impatient, the dilation of his hazel eyes- one yellow ring in the left, blue in the right. He sucked on his bottom lip when he was thinking. The Winter Soldier could hear his pulse quicken under the hum of his arc-reactor. 

Steve shifted, turning away from Stark as he spoke. Another tell- tension, fear.

‘Bucky has been piecing together memories…’ 

‘Let me guess, he killed someone else's parents.’ Tony growled not so quietly under his breath, not even bothering to turn his attention to where Bucky stood. 

Steve tried to ignore him. ‘Using information from Bucky’s memories and with the help of satellite photography, we believe that there is a Hydra facility in this region of Rome. Vatican City to be precise.’ 

With a flick of his hand, Steve raised a 3D map showing densely built buildings and deep levels of underground caves. 

‘Rome is a little out of Hydra’s usual territory?They prefer to hide in mountains and wilderness,’ Natasha said with her mouth full of doughnut. 

‘It would be a good place to keep something hidden by hiding it in plain sight,’ Vision commented as he hovered by Wanda’s side, fingers playing with the hologram. 

‘After collating the reported sightings of Angel Fire and cross referencing them with details of Bucky’s memories, we believe that this is where they are making the substance.’ 

Red lines appeared across Steve’s map. Pictures of scorch marks, blast zones and piles of bodies all linked up with a small cave system underneath Vatican city.

Sam held his hand up. ‘I’m sorry if this is a stupid question but what is Angel Fire?’ 

‘It’s a ghost story,’ Stark sighed, kicking back his chair. 

_ No! _ He needed to make them understand. 

‘It’s real!’ Bucky snapped impatiently, his breath hitched, knuckles cracked, temper flaring. ‘And it's one of the most dangerous weapons out there.’ 

Bucky was barely able to keep himself rooted to the spot. Too many people, too many eyes. They wouldn’t understand. None of it! 

Wanda sighed sympathetically and made to step towards him but Vision rested a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head slightly. 

Tony got to his feet and paced up to the hologram. ‘Stark Industries looked into it once. Before all my kidnapping...Iron Man heroics. Forensics from the blast sights found that it wasn’t carbon based, which we thought was impossible at the time. The Pentagon told us it was a hoax planted by the Chinese. Chinese intelligence said it was Russian and the Russian government…’ 

‘Let me guess….,’ Fury stood resting against the door frame, suddenly appearing. ‘They said it was American.’ 

‘Ding Ding!’ Tony took a deep gulp of his seltzer. 

‘So it's a dud?’ Natasha asked Fury, cocking her eye sceptically. 

‘A dud that burns at five thousand kelvin with no flame, untraceable, and we have no idea where it comes from. Sure, why not, call it a dud.’ Tony snorted theatrically. 

Fury shook his head slowly before turning his eye towards the hologram. ‘This is your new top priority.’ 

Bucky’s spine stiffened but Steve spoke for him. ‘Why now?’ 

‘Because Angel Fire was just used to crack open an unbreakable vault underneath the Berlin Museum of Antiquities, along with the entire street above,’ Fury retorted quickly. 

Sam got to his feet and pointed at an inner chamber on the hologram. ‘So we blow up the base, disturb its production and capture Hydra when they try to relocate.’ 

‘We can’t do that,’ Bucky said quietly, his deep voice more of a harsh bark. 

‘And why not, Sergeant Barnes?’ Fury asked smoothly. 

Bucky struggled to formulate the words. The images that he saw every night in his dreams... How could he make them understand? 

_ Fire...Smoke… The Blood. The chanting. The smoke. The fire. The blood. The chanting. The chanting, the chanting.... _

Bucky stammered, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. ‘There is someone being held prisoner there,’ 

‘Who?’ Sam asked, frowning slightly. 

‘A women. You see her…’ Wanda shrugged off Vision’s hand and took a step towards Bucky, her face was pale with fear and her eyes wide. ‘She’s in pain. She...She helped you.’ 

‘Stay out of my head,’ Bucky spat in a low voice before he could stop himself. 

‘Stay away from my friends!’ Tony tossed aside his chair as he jumped to his feet.

‘Mr Stark,-’ Vision floated between the two men. ‘ I do not think that Sergeant Barnes meant any real offence. It is understandable-’ 

‘Nothing about him-’ Tony jabbed his index finger in Bucky’s direction. ‘-is understandable.’ 

‘If we can get back to the matter in hand.’ Fury shook his head regretfully but not unkindly. ‘I cannot risk the safety of the world for one woman who may be already working with Hydra.’ 

Bucky hesitated. ‘I think she is being forced to make it. I … She is involved with Angel Fire and I think she knows how it's made.’ 

‘How do you know she’s there against her will?’ Natasha asked, as she flicked through the pages of her dossier. 

‘I speak from experience,’ Bucky retorted dryly. 

‘It could give us a strong home advantage,’ Steve commented lightly. 

Fury hesitated. ‘Fine but it would have to be a stealth mission. Being that close to the Vatican will make the Home Secretary antsy. No heroics. Get in, extract the hostage, destroy the base and get out.’ 

Steve turned to Bucky, barely concealing the smile on his face. ‘Let’s get the team together.’ 


	2. Phase 1: Chapter 2- The Necropolis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ Sam asked, his brow furrowed. ‘These tunnels are a death trap. We’re going in there with half a plan and a bag of explosives and…’ 
> 
> ‘-And hoping for the best.’ Steve laughed without humour, checking the strap of his shield. ‘The more intel we have, the more likely it is they will know we are coming.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of action and horror in this chapter. There are some bits that people may find upsetting so please read with caution

‘Wow, this is beautiful,’ Clint sighed as he looked out over Rome’s skyline. 

The sun was falling quickly, sending golden rays over the sea of terracotta roofs and white marble walls. Underneath the window of their dingy apartment that Fury had rented for them, the team could hear happy voices rising up from the restaurant below them over the sound of distant car horns. 

‘This-,’ he looked back at the 3D hologram that floated a little off the floor in front of the team. ‘-this is a mess.’ 

‘It’s not that bad,’ Natasha replied, nudging Clint’s shoulder playfully. 

‘No, Clint is right. This is going to be hell,’ Steve sighed but he was smiling. They were all smiling. 

‘ _ Fools _ ,’ a dark voice within Bucky growled. It was cold and cruel, flinty and harsh from lack of use. In the corner of the room where Bucky sat watching the team gear up he tried to keep his mind from wandering, keep himself anchored into the here and now. 

_ The chanting. The smoke. The fire. The blood. The chanting. The chanting, the chanting.... _

‘...  _ Qui pereunt, et avare rapiat, _

_ Cecidit, et resurrexit: _

_ Ferrum conteram ut rotam…’ _

**No!** Bucky forced his eyes open, sucked in a lungful of air and readjusted his rifle in his hands. It was a reassuring weight. 

Jaw clenched and shoulders hunched over, Bucky checked his weapon for the hundredth time that day. Barrel, magazine, mechanism, scope...repeat. 

‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ Sam asked, his brow furrowed. ‘These tunnels are a death trap. We’re going in there with half a plan and a bag of explosives and…’ 

‘-And hoping for the best.’ Steve laughed without humour, checking the strap of his shield. ‘The more intel we have, the more likely it is they will know we are coming.’ 

Natasha got to her feet and pointed at the hologram with the tip of her finger. The hologram itself looked like an ants nest. A mess of tunnels and deadends that made the hair on the back of Bucky’s neck stand on end. 

‘We know that Hydra’s catacombs were built underneath the Vatican Necropolis. Whatever they are hiding down there, they need space, isolation and utter secrecy. Power signatures indicate a central chamber with several smaller rooms leading off from the main hall. There are two small service entrances that we can access through St. Peter’s Cathedral. The main entrance appears to be through a series of privately owned buildings.’ 

Bucky shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes and tried to focus on the hologram. The pounding in his head would only get worse if he thought about it, he needed action, he needed a distraction...anything to keep him thinking back to… 

‘Bucky and Cap will draw them out by going through the main entrance in the cellar level of the St. Peter’s Grand Hotel. Me and Sam will take service tunnel one, Tony and Clint will take service tunnel two and secure it as our escape route. Hill and the Big Guy are our eyes in the sky and our evac in case things go sideways. We cannot afford this to spill into the open- not with such a densely populated area.’ 

‘We could have really used Thor. One of his storms could have helped to get people off the street if this thing goes south.’ Clint shrugged, tugging his quiver over his shoulder. 

‘If ifs and buts were sugar and nuts, we’d all have a never Christmas,’ Tony sighed tightly, turning on his ear piece. ‘Banner, Hill, do you have a read on us?’ 

A voice crackled through their comms link making Bucky wince. ‘Tell me again why you get the weekend in Rome and I’m stuck in the quinjet?’ Banner grumbled. 

‘Its okay, Doc. I’ll bring you back a souvenir.’ Tony chuckled. ‘How do you feel about Pene Penne?’ 

‘Eyes front team, I want this mission clean and by the book. A lot of civilians will be in the way if this goes wrong.’ Steve shot them all a stern but encouraging stair. ‘You’ve got your missions. Keep your comms on and keep your heads down.’ 

** 

Blood pounded in his ears, flop sweat stung his eyes but with the weight of the gun in his hands and Steve guarding his six, for the first time in months- maybe even years, Bucky felt somewhat whole again. 

It had been disarmingly easy to get through the hotel down to the cellar level without being seen. 

They crouched by the darkened alleyway outside of the staff entrance. 

_ Two boys laughed behind their hands as a fat man tossed brown paper bags into a dumpster. He spat chewing tobacco on the ground and swore under his breath as he slammed the lid shut.  _

_ ‘Come on’ Buck, I’ll give you a boost.’  _

_ ‘You gotta be kiddin’ me, you’ll keep the good donuts for yourself. Now hurry up and get on my shoulders, punk.’  _

Bucky’s head stung as the memory swam in front of his eyes but before he could open his mouth, something beeped on Steve’s wrist, the lights went out and the fire doors swung open. None of the staff noticed two lone figures enter the cellar as they scrambled out of the fire exists, complaining in rapid Italian. 

They made quick work of the metal staircase, silhouetted by flickering fluorescent lights and then two more wooden ones as they descended into the bowels of the earth. 

‘The door should be 20 meters on the right.’ Steve’s voice was barely a whisper and yet whether it was Bucky’s enhanced hearing, his voice seemed to echo around the dank earth walls and linger as if it was not wanted. 

‘Copy that.’ 

The doorway soon appeared, hidden behind a rack of wine and disguised to look like a part of the wall but it was there: something in Bucky knew it was there. His heart rate pitched but his hands remained steady. Cold adrenaline coursed through his veins: he didn’t know if it was excitement or fear. 

‘It’s armed.’

‘I got it.’ Steve murmured as he prized open a disguised electrical hatch and began working on the wires. ‘We’ll bypass the matrix and make it think that the door is still armed. Hopefully they will think that it’s just a glitch.’ 

‘Fine.’ Bucky jaw was so tight he barely managed to ground out the word. 

With a sidewards glance at Bucky, Steve used the edge of his shield to pry open the door. Although disguised to look like brick, it was made of thick industrial strength iron- something close to a submarine hatch, with a hermetic seal on the inside. 

They both stood back as the door swung open. 

Darkness. Utter, impenetrable darkness. You could feel this darkness leaching, sucking the meager light from the cellar hallway where they stood. It felt hot too, clammy almost. Bucky flinched as if some monster was reaching out to drag him down into its fetid swamp. 

‘Hey, Buck-’ Steve spoke in a hushed voice, resting his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. 

When had he closed his eyes? When had his back hit the fair wall? Steve’s voice sounded too far away. 

_ ‘...De igne cinis _

_ Duo enim maledice ac maligne, _

_ Una enim fractionis, _

_ Malebolge tepidum vigili…’ _

‘Bucky, it's okay. We’re okay… we can call it off, I’ll call Banner and get the team back to the surface.’ 

‘No,’ Bucky choked out. He forced his head up to look into Steve’s fearful eyes. ‘I need to do this.’ 

‘We’ll do this together,’ Steve sighed unhappily and tutted. ‘Always doing something stupid.’ 

Bucky tried to smile but it looked more like a grimace. ‘Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ 

***

‘Cap, I don’t know what you’re seeing but Legolas and I are walking through an episode of American Horror Story here, and I am man enough to admit it's giving me a serious case of the willies,’ Tony’s voice crackled through their earpieces. 

Bucky and Steve shared a look. Neither of them knew what an ‘American Horror Story’ was but they understood the sentiment. 

The warren of caverns and tunnels were dark and hot, like you were crawling through the belly of a giant. With twists and turns, narrow passages and dead ends, the going had been painfully slow. With every step Bucky’s grip on his gun grew tighter until his bones arched. 

‘Tony, keep your camera on and send anything you can up to Banner and Hill. We’re 800 meters from the main chamber. 12 confirmed kills on our end,’ Steve hissed in a low voice. 

The first room they had entered, Steve breached the door, Bucky followed on his six and squeezing off four bullets into two hostiles. The bodies fell to the ground before their faces registered their surprise. 

‘God help us.’ 

Bucky looked up from the faces of the two fallen Hydra agents towards Steve. His face was bloodless, his eyes wide and his mouth was open as if to let out a silent scream. 

The dark earth walls were lined with jars, green, brown, murky and black, each filled with a different illformed shape. Bile rose in Bucky’s throat as he found himself staring into the eyes of a human fetus, warped and twisted, frozen in green liquid. 

It only got worse from there. It was so much...so much more than he had ever imagined, even in his worst nightmares. Each open door revealed a new horror. 

There was a chamber with animals in cages, their screams of pain filled the air as acid slowly dripped on them from pipquets fixed above them. In another room, skins of every different shape and size were being stretched and fixed onto canvases; horse hide, lion hide, human skin were among the few. The noise of the blood dripping down into the storm drain seemed louder than the noise of Bucky’s rifle.

‘Bucky, what the hell is this place?’ Steve asked tightly. They reached for the next metal door along the hallway. His face was half turned, looking at Bucky over his shoulder as if to reassure himself that he wasn’t going mad: that this was as bad as it was going to get. 

Bucky wished he could make that promise. He wished he could say that it was nearly over. Yet he couldn’t. They had only begun scratching the hideous surface of whatever Hydra was doing here. 

They had brought him here many times over his years as their slave. It made his stomach churn but he needed to know why. Bucky needed answers. 

‘It's Hell, Steve.’ Was the only truthful answer Bucky could give him. 

Another room, another set of cages. 

This time they are filled with people ...or atleast, they had been people at some point. They pulled at the chains that bound them, jabbering and screaming as Steve and Bucky passed. Their eyes were unseeing, jagged- mutated teeth jutted out of their mouths as they slashed at them with sharp claws. Some had sets of angry looking horns bursting through their foreheads and curling around their ears. Others had serpentine eyes and long, curling forked tongues that tasted the foul air. 

Worse were the ones that were beautiful. If Hydra had taught Bucky anything it was that there was no dichotomy between what was beautiful and what was deadly. The sharpest knife has the most beautiful edge, blood the deepest colour, evil the most alluring song. 

The chamber was pitch black save for one flickering candle placed in front of the mirror. It’s brass frame looked cheap and worn, similar to what you would find in the back of a pawnbroker window and yet… it may have been a trick of the light but Bucky could have sworn he saw the surface of the mirror shuddered as they passed by. 

‘We need to get movin…’ Steve’s voice died in his throat mid sentence as his head snapped back in the direction of the mirror. 

Bucky frowned, watching his friend closely. ‘Steve?’ 

Steve huffed through his nose and shook his head. ‘I thought I heard something. Come on-’ His head snapped again. ‘Can’t you hear it?’ He asked, lowering his head to listen to the darkness of the room. 

Bucky stilled and held his breath. His own beating heart, blood pumping in his ears….

‘Stevie...Stevie…’ It was the faintest of whispers, sweet and high. Memories or not, Bucky could have recognised it anywhere. 

‘Mom?...Mom!’ Steve whirled on his heel and raced across to the mirror. 

Sarah Rogers stared back at them as if she was leaning on the window frame of their Brooklyn apartment on Flatbush Avenue. Sun shone down at her from above as Bucky caught the scent of Mr Nowak’s Pretzel cart wafting on the air.. 

‘Oh, Stevie, my beautiful little boy,’ Sarah’s image sighed, wiping tears off her cheek as she reached out her hand. 

She looked just how he remembered her, as if she had stepped out of a memory. Her pale blonde hair was braided to one side and she wore her nurses uniform underneath a cooking apron. 

Steve hesitated a few feet from the mirror, unblinking as he stared at her face hungrily. He went to take a step closer but with a sudden lunged Bucky grabbed his arm and pulled him back. 

‘What the hell are you doing!’ Steve snapped, hauling away from Bucky’s grip. ‘That’s my Mom.’ 

‘Steve-’ Bucky shoved him hard in the chest, trying to push him to the door. ‘That’s not Sarah. You know she died a long time ago.’ Bucky needed to make him understand.

‘Stevie, my little boy, don’t leave me.’ Sarah’s image called, her singsong voice echoing around the room, dancing off the walls and around Bucky’s head. ‘We can be a family again.Come back to me, my sweet baby boy.’ 

He dug his army boots into the floor as Steve began to drag himself back to the mirror. His face manic, twisted and desperate, covered in a fine sheen of sweat. 

RUN! A voice pounded in his head as nausea twisted in Bucky’s gut. 

‘Steve!’ Using his metal hand Bucky grabbed Steve’s jaw and forced his head round. Steve gnashed his teeth and snarled as Bucky held him tight enough to leave a bruise. ‘Why would Sarah be here, of all places? Think about it Steve-’ he shook Steve by the collar of his tactical suit. ‘ You wouldn’t want her in a place like this would you? What would Joseph think?’ 

‘Dad…’ Steve murmured slowly, blinking as he did so like he was coming out of a deep sleep. ‘It's not safe…’ Steve said in a quiet voice. 

‘We need to go.’ 

‘We need to go,’ Steve echoed foggily as he allowed Bucky to push his body forward. 

He didn’t look back, he didn’t let Steve look although he tried. Steve stumbled, his neck twitched but Bucky held him fast as the image in the mirror screamed and clawed at the frame. 

Bucky didn’t know what the hell that thing was but if the shattered bones and nail marks gouged into the door were anything to go by, it wasn’t good. 

******

‘I think this is latin but I don’t recognise these symbols,’ Steve said as he studied markings carved into the stone walls. 

The latest chamber was larger than the rest. The floor was polished smooth, painted with gold in places making it look important. Hydra had certainly fought like it was important. 

The fire fight had been bloody and brutal. Whatever was in that room, Hydra did not want SHIELD to get their hands on it. 

Steve covered Bucky as he returned rapid fire, his semi-automatic rifle kicking back into his shoulder. Their cover turned bad as more agents appeared on their six. Pinned down now, Steve threw his shield, repelling a grenade back to its owner. 

‘You tryin’ to bury us alive!?’ Bucky choked out as dust and dirt filled his mouth. 

‘No need to thank me,’ Steve retorted, grimacing as a fresh wave of bullets rained down. 

It wasn’t France. It wasn’t even Italy or Brooklyn but something felt the same. Steve had been one good thing to come out of Bucky’s messed up life. And he’d brought him nothin’ but trouble. If it hadn’t been for Bucky, Steve would have stayed in Brooklyn, met a nice girl, had a couple of kids: like it was supposed to go. But no, he was here in the fucking year 2014, in a fucking cave, back in fucking Italy where it had all started. 

So many things were his fault. 

‘Buck!’ Steve tried to shout over the noise of the gun fire but Bucky was beyond hearing him. 

TAT, TAT, TAT….TAT, TAT, TAT….TAT, TAT, TAT…. Bullets pinged off his metal arm. With a deft flick of his wrist, Bucky repelled them back at their owners. 

Two confirmed kills. Six hostiles remained. 

_ Take cover. Restrict their open movements, pick them off. Keep low, keep sharp _ . Somewhere deep inside him, the Winter Soldier was enjoying this. This is what he was good at. 

‘Cap, we have a situation on our end. It looks like our friends in Hydra are planning on taking this place down with all its research.’ Distantly Bucky registered Agent Romanov speaking through his earpiece. 

He was too busy. Crouching behind an upturned slab of granite, Bucky hunted through his scope. Eyes like a fine tuned machine, he could hear a pin drop over the sound of the blood in his ears. 

BLAATT! Somewhere a Hydra operative let out a muffled cry, bullet through his traceria. 

One kill.

BLAATT! 

Two kills. 

Rifle pressed into his shoulder, he squeezes the trigger - ‘Bucky, we need to get out of here. They’ve rigged it to blow!’ Captain America’s heart was escalated, blood and dirt streaked his face as he tried to haul the Winter Soldier back.

He shrugged off the hand. An annoyance. A liability. 

The noise was gone now. Mouths opened to shout but no words came out. His rifle kicked back into his shoulder but it was quiet, muffled. A screaming face rose up in front, gun and a knife- kneecap, solar plexus, trachea - kill confirmed. 

The Winter Soldier steps away as the body hits the floor. It feels good. 

‘Barnes, get out of here!’ Distantly he registers a voice calling his name. 

Clouds of smoke billow, Iron Man’s jets roar around the roof of the cavern, distorted amongst the sound of heavy gunfire and screaming. 

The funny thing about bombs is that you feel them before you hear them. 

_ ( _ _ He went back to the attache case and opened it...Inside the case he saw a keyboard, a small computer screen, two square packets, and a series of wires. The Asset knelt down and tapped on the keyboard. A series of codes appeared on the screen: black and white,.. _

_ He’d watched from an empty apartment as the street outside the embassy was suddenly torn apart. The shockwave threw cars up into the air, a sudden flare of heat…) _

The air was punched out of his lungs. His eyes stung, his nose bleeding but as he pulled himself to his feet he looked down at the remains of a Hydra agent...what little of him that did remain. 

‘You need to keep your guy in line, Cap, if I hadn’t have put a lid on the bomb your old pal Barnes’ would have…’ 

‘I said I got it, Tony! Now, can you give me a structural read out or not?’ 

His ears were ringing but he barely registered the hushed voices of the team around him. Agent Romanov and Major Wilson were busy analysing some of the data banks that were built up the side of the cavern. Steve being Steve, he was respectfully closing the eyes of the dead Hydra agents. 

Standing amongst the carnage, Bucky stepped over bodies. Soot and dirt smeared his face, there was blood splattered up his metal arm. He didn’t know who it belonged to. He didn’t care. Bucky had been looking for answers but whatever the hell they had found here had only raised more questions. 

‘I’m not an expert in languages but it seems to be an old latin dialect, thought to have died out in the…’ Banner’s voice buzzed. 

‘Can you translate it, Doc?’ Tony interjected. His gloved hand tracing one of the thousands of concentric circles and intricate patterns that had been painstakingly carved into the cave wall. 

_ ‘ _ Google translate says it reads as _ “Lost and found. Forged; a fist to shatter the world.”  _ Whatever the hell that means.’ __

‘That sounds encouraging.’ Clint huffed, flipping over the body of a Hydra agent with his bow. 

Bucky didn’t bother to face his team mates. He already knew what the markings said. How could he forget. The words chilled him to his very core as if something had frozen the air in his lungs. 

**We need to keep looking. This is the place. This is where it happened.** Bucky wanted to say, needed to say to someone- anyone but the words seemed lodged in his throat unwilling to move. 

His legs moved without him knowing. They followed the path that they walked in his dreams. He barely saw the damp, moss covered walls now or felt the hot air on his skin. In fact he barely felt anything other than cold fear and relentless adrenaline coursing through his body as he stood in front of the bulkhead door. 

It was expertly camouflaged, painted to look like sandstone but he knew it anywhere. 

‘Bucky!’ Steve was hissing in his ear as he suddenly realised that his friend was disappearing down one of the smaller tunnels. ‘Where the …’

‘Steve -’ his voice was distant as if it belonged to someone else. With a trembling hand Bucky touched the hidden seal. ‘It’s here, Steve...I…’

Suddenly he looked up at his friend.  _ When had he got so tall? _ And something unspoken passed between them. 

With a tight nod, Steve stepped in front of Bucky and wrenched the bulkhead to the right. ‘I’ll go first.’ 

***

He couldn't believe his eyes. He didn’t want to anyway. He’d never seen something like this even in his worst nightmares. But that was only because his brain always woke him up before such horrific images filled his mind. And now he was seeing something his eyes won't ever be able to erase.

At this point, as Bucky’s heavy army issue boot hovered over the threshold, his nightmares would cut out- stutter, as if the cinema projector had been knocked so that the film skipped to the next scene. The audience would have thrown their popcorn. Steady couples would have pulled their lovers deeper into their seats on the back row. Steve could have offered him his last piece of taffy. 

The adrenalin flew through his veins like a bullet through the air, but his boots carried him, keeping tight to Steve’s side. Bucky couldn’t remember being this scared in all his life. Not on Zola’s table, not even when he first got shipped out. That had been a matter and life and death, him pitched against whoever was shooting at him. 

Now it was different. Now, he was faced with the unknown...monstrous things that they had made him do in the darkness. And that was just the beginning. That idea only made it worse. If that was even possible.

It was the smell that came first. 

Only a handful of people really know what bloodshed smells like. You taste it in the back of your throat. It's sharp and metallic. Your body knows it's wrong so it tries to gag, trying to purge the smell from the air. 

Next comes the colour. 

The room, chamber whatever the hell you call it. In the back of the Asset’s mind he called it ‘The Pit’. The walls, floor and ceiling had all been painted by an artist who only used red. 

Lightning like blood trails covered every inch of stone. It wasn't a few careless drops from a bleeding nose or a cut finger; whole bodies’ worth streaking in scarlett, burgundy and dusty brown. Running fresh and wet through carved inlets on the floor. 

‘The same markings,’ Steve breathed, his voice barely a whisper as he nodded at the intricate carvings on the wall of The Pit. 

Bucky’s head snapped around, his gun raised at eye level, as a noise caught his attention. Silence. A heartbeat and then...Again! Metal against stone but slow as if someone was moving tentatively. 

Bucky flinched as Steve snapped something over his knee. He tossed two light sticks into the dark corners of the small room. Their light was eerie and did little against the oppressive darkness. 

Somebody was screaming, Bucky had to check that it wasn’t himself. It could have been him. He certainly wanted to scream but he kept his mouth shut, he bit the inside of his cheek so he could taste blood instead of smelling the foul, acrid stench that filled the air and sent his head reeling. 

‘What is this place?’ Steve growled, bearing down on a cowering Hydra agent that he held by the collar of his spotless lab coat. 

The man dangled helplessly off the filthy floor as he tried to pull himself out of Steve’s grip. The man must have been in his late fifties, slimy, bony features that visibly paled as Bucky stepped into the light. His brilliantly white lab coat, black rubber gloves and safety goggles made him look out of place; too clean, too normal. 

‘I...I don’t know what you mean. This is a government funded facility, we are excavating-’ The man babbled, his face turning purple. 

‘Don’t lie to me,’ Steve growled dangerously but Bucky found himself turning away. 

_ Chnk. _

Metal against stone. An iron link. 

‘Steve-’ Bucky’s voice must have been urgent because Steve’s head snapped to attention. 

‘Is there anyone else here?’ Steve physically shook the whimpering lab technician. ‘Tell me!’ 

But the man’s eyes betrayed him. As he weeped and begged like a blubbering child, his eyes lingered for a split second too long on a section of wall in the corner of the chamber. 

‘There air is colder here,’ Bucky said as Steve shoved away the lab tech. 

‘False wall. Stark, we need to borrow one of your explosives-’ Steve stopped abruptly as Bucky sank his metal fist into the stone work. 

It shattered and fell in heavy pieces, flinging dust and debris into the air. Bucky froze. Everything around him stopped, even Steve at his side seemed lost for words at the sight that awaited them. 

It looked like a bag of bones held together with translucent skin, if it hadn't been for the webs of IV tubes attached to its arms, legs, mouth, stomach. Machines beeped, somewhere liquid bubbled and gases hissed in canisters but Bucky only had eyes for the figure in front of him. 

If you have ever seen a picture of prisoners of war, you will know how dead their eyes are. It wasn’t her emaciated body, bones stabbing at her skin, or how her hair had been shaved viscously to her scalp, or how her head lolled lifelessly on her shoulder from whatever concoction they were bumping her with. It was her eyes, those eyes were the ones that had haunted him. Those pale blue eyes, like meadow flowers, staring out of a skull like face. They had accused the Winter Soldier, begged for his help...And now he was here, standing in front of her, he couldn’t find any words to say. 

His legs moved, striding across the hidden chamber heedless of his surroundings. Steve was more cautious. He moved slowly, pointing his body camera at the carvings on the walls, the semi circle of runes at the women’s feet.

Blue lights danced across the stone walls, seemingly without a source. There was not a space on the wall that wasn’t carved or branded in some way. When your eyes adjusted to the pattern they fixed on some other shape, always morphing and never settling on one image over the other as if they were fighting for a place. The largest shapes that they could make out were what looked like two inverted ‘L’s’ faced back to back from each other and hanging over the women’s head all the way to the ceiling. The ‘L’s’ looked crude, ash and scorch marks made their outline smudged in places. And at each junction of the ‘L’s’, iron nails had been hammered deep into the stone work. 

The women watched him approach, her eyelids heavy and dropping with the effort of lifting her head. Nothing registered in her eyes as Bucky knelt in front of her; no fear, no hate….emptiness. 

She let out a harsh exhale as he eased a large plastic feeding tube out of her mouth, gently pulling away the straps that held it in place. He had to fight with himself not to tear all the tubes from her body and destroy every one of those damn machines. She was alive, that was more than he had hoped for. And now…

‘She needs medical attention, let me call-’ 

‘No.’ Bucky snapped, stilling Steve’s hand and moving it away from his communicator. They were both kneeling beside the women. Fear made them pensive but something in Bucky’s eyes made Steve’s hand fall away. ‘I need to do this.’ 

With a curt nod, Steve pulled out a set of lock picks- presents from Natasha last christmas- and began working on the handcuffs. ‘My name is Steve Rogers, we’re here to rescue you. Can you tell us your name?’ 

She blinked slowly. A pair of bloodless, cracked lips forming an ‘o’ shape and then pressing into a thin line experimentally. She tried to speak but only a hoarse, rattling noise came out. Her eyes fell closed as she tried again. ‘Ta..ke. me... home.’ 

  
  


‘Do you know what any of it means?’ Steve asked, hesitantly tracing the ‘L’s’ with the tip of his finger. It came away streaked with ash. 

‘I don’t think I want to.’ Bucky ground out through his teeth. He watched Steve work, barely breathing as he held the fragile arm out for Steve to work on the manacle. It felt like a dry twig, the smallest amount of pressure would have snapped it in two. 

Steve nodded grimly. ‘We need to get back to the team. Maybe Wanda can look into her mind an…’ 

‘You won’t be going anywhere!’ A voice spat viscously. The lab technician had lost all sense of fear. If anything he enjoyed holding the dagger in his hands. It was needle-like, with a long, keen edge that caught the light when he flicked it through the air. 

‘Put the knife down before you hurt yourself,’ Steve retorted impatiently as he squared up to the man. 

Bucky remained crouched by the women’s side, ready to bolt with her at a moment’s notice. 

‘Captain America,-’ the lab tech voice was thick with sarcasm and disdain, his maniac grin too wide for his face. His eyes darkened, no longer belonging to his old self. ‘Aren’t you just a sight for sore eyes. You know we have wanted to try you out for a while, see if you had the magic ingredient…’ The man fell into a fit of giggles, high and without warmth, till tears streamed down his face. 

‘Magic ingredient for what?’ Steve snapped impatiently. 

‘Why...why don’t you ask your good friend, the Winter Soldier?’ His dark eyes turned towards Bucky. ‘We’ve had some fun times together, haven’t we?’ 

Bucky’s tongue felt thick in his mouth. ‘I don’t know you,’ he managed to choke out. The light of his comm flashed- the team was trying to make contact. 

The man chuckled, humourlessly, his eyes never leaving Bucky’s face as he spoke quietly, almost a whisper. ‘Look again, Asset.’ 

The knife glinted, raised high into the air before it plunged, hilt deep into the man’s chest. There was a strangled cry, a gasping breath as he stumbled forward. 

Steve went to grab the blade but suddenly he recoiled, a silent scream caught in his throat. 

What stepped forward was not the lab technician. His skin had cracked like dry clay, his blood pulsed and throbbed. He took a step forward, his foot split the toe of his shoe as it burst apart. 

It was nothing like Banner’s transformation. It was as if a ..thing.. Some type of foul creature had grown inside the lab tech and was now bursting out of his skin. 

There was a noise like cracking marble. Steve’s body span through the air like a puppet tossed aside by a child. His back hit the far wall with the force of a freight train, sliding to the ground in a bleeding heap.

STEVE...Bucky's brain did a strange skip, freezing, jarring at the sight of blood gushing from a cut in his friend’s face.

Air punched out of his lungs as the back of his head hit the wall. Sharp claws pierced the skin of his neck but Bucky bared his teeth as he stared into the eyes of the creature before him. 

‘You have been missed, Asset.’ What had been the lab technician’s face now hung in ruins, skin flapping in long bloody strips as a black, stone skull emerged underneath. Its eyes were like dark coal pits and when it opened its jaws sparks spat out, burning specs on Bucky’s face. 

‘Think I’d remember a mug like yours,’ Bucky choked out as he tried to wedge his boots against the monster’s chest. He kicked out, lashing at his attacker’s face, stomach, joints but it was as if his blows weren't landing at all. The Thing didn’t even flinch when Bucky sank his thumbs into its eye sockets. 

The creature let out a noise that could have been a laugh. Its shoulders shook, the remains of the torn lab coat falling in rags to the floor. Bucky scrambled with its wrist, his metal arm groaned as he tried to squeeze down on the fragile bones. 

**FIGHT! RUN! HIDE!** Cold adrenaline made his head swim, the Winter Soldier clambered inside his mind, screaming instructions that his body couldn’t follow. His eyesight had begun to swim, the chamber and the laughing skull blurred. Distantly he heard the sound of chains hitting the ground. 

‘ You may not have remembered but we do not forget you. We shall be together again. My brothers and sisters have waited a long time,-’ the creature sucked in a breath and seemed to shudder, titling its skull back as if reveling in the sensation. It leaned forward, speaking millimetres from Bucky’s face. ‘And now... Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni.’

_ The chanting. The chanting, the chanting.... _

‘...  _ Qui pereunt, et avare rapiat, _

_ Cecidit, et resurrexit: _

_ Ferrum conteram ut rotam…’ _

His tongue felt thick in his mouth, vomit rose in his throat. ‘I don’t take orders anymore,’ he growled the words, trying to put as much anger in them as he could. 

Skulls physically cannot smile. The creature opened its mouth part way so that its jaws were ajar and tilted its head to one side. It would have looked comical if it didn’t have Bucky’s windpipe pinned to the wall with needle sharp claws. ‘After we are done, you will take orders willingly.’ 

SNAP! 

A noise like a firecracker. A tree trunk splitting in two. A crack of lighting. 

Hot, damp air filed Bucky’s lungs as the claws retracted. He fell, sliding down the wall and collapsing in a heap of tangled limbs and bones. Wet flaps of bloodied skin, torn shoes and clothing. He desperately kicked it away. 

‘Is it done?’ 

Bucky looked up. 

The woman collapsed on the floor on the other side of the bones. Sweat beaded her brow and her eyes were already drooping but in her spider like fingers she was slowly turning the skull over in her hands. 

‘Tearing something’s head off will do that,’ he heard himself say in a croaky voice. 

She tried to smile as he looked up and met his eyes but it was more than a feverish grimace as she slumped against the stone floor. 

‘Cap….Cap! Steve, come in!’ Wilson’s desperate cries broke through Steve’s communicator as Bucky tried to force himself to his feet. ‘It’s a trap! The bombs were on a timer, it’s gonna….’ 

With his remaining strength, Bucky threw his body across the chamber just as the ceiling burst open in a cataclysm of boulders and raging water. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens! 
> 
> Please comment and subscribe ! I love to hear from you guys x


	3. Phase 1: Chapter 3- The Reckoning pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘What they have taken from me….’ a hoarse breath escaped her throat as her throat contracted. ‘No amount of killing will ever bring back.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello All! 
> 
> This chapter turned into a bit of a monster so I have chopped it in half. Please let me know what you think, it makes me write so much faster when I have nice comments to look back on.

Somewhere, on the far side of the SHEILD compound, a clock was ticking. The mechanical hands slowly worked themselves round the clock face, ticking down the hours till sunrise. 

Bucky rolled onto his side, punching his pillow into a better shape. It was too soft. He was lucky if he got half an hour these days. The dreams were bad enough. Cold adrenaline coursing through his veins, flop sweat, screaming into his pillow. Worse were the looks that he got; Wanda’s sympathy, Wilson’s ‘helpful’ suggestions. . 

“ _ We were better alone _ .” 

**_Maybe_ ** .

They both knew it wasn’t true. Steve had found him. He’d seen the man with stars and stripes so many times in his dreams. There was gunfire and explosions and little boys running through alleyways but always there was the man...and Steve was his name. 

He still remembered when Steve had found him. Barely more than an animal. Sleeping rough in a hunting cabin in the Hoia Forest. The locals had told Steve that that part of the forest was full of ghosts but the only one he found was what was left of the Winter Soldier. 

“ _ We liked the woods _ ,” the Winter Soldier whispered in the back of Bucky’s mind.

_ Frost covered pine trees, black rivers trailing through high banks of snow. He’s perched in a tree, wedged between two thick branches, he waits silently as a deer passes beneath unaware that it is moments from death.  _

**_I know._ **

It was a hard life but that made it easier to forget. The days boiled down to eating, sleeping, making shelter. 

_ “We should go back.” _

Even as he said it, the images of snow covered mountains and deep valleys fell away. 

**_We can’t._ **

Not now. It was unspoken between them but they both knew. Rome, the catacombs, the experiments… Bucky opened and closed his metal fist, slowly flexing his fingers. He was left with more questions then when he had started.  **_Maybe we should go back._ **

_ “Not now.”  _ They both knew he could never go back. Not now that she could give him the answers he needed. 

He rolled his shoulder as he got out of bed. It was part of his routine. Something he’d never lost. 200 push ups. Fold back his blanket, tuck in the corners. 200 sit ups. Straighten his pillow. 200 mountain climbers. Shower, shave, try and look normal. 

**_At least the suns up_ ** , Bucky thought as he padded silently into the kitchen so that he could begin to stare aimlessly into the icebox. 

Behind him in the living room the television droned on. Maximov had left it on again. She would watch the news late into the night when everyone else had gone to bed. 

“ And I’ve heard on the grapevine-” a woman with short blonde hair wearing a suit was smiling out the television. The audience laughed as she made a face at the camera. “-that we might hear the sound of wedding bells very soon.”

Bucky immediately lost interest as the camera panned round to show Stark’s cocksure face grinned back. 

“Well, you know Ellen, Pepper is my angel and she tolerates so much…”

Bucky gave up with the fridge and grabbed an apple on his way to the gym. Another one of his rituals. He'd manage 50 minutes of boxing before hitting the showers again, finishing just in time for Steve to wake up. They’d go through the motions of pretending that he’d had more than a hours worth of sleep, that he hadn’t barricaded his door again, or that he hadn’t woken up gasping for breath. 

He took the stairs as always but for the last three weeks he'd take a detour. For three weeks he’d skulked through the medical bay, unseen by the doctors and nurses, unseen by the cameras.He didn’t want to be there. The antiseptic smell made his nose sting, the sound of the machines made the muscles in his neck twitch. He knew he shouldn’t but it was as if a fish hook were pulling him up to Med Bay 3.

42 times he had stood watching her through the glass wall of her hospital room. Twice a day for three weeks, he waited silently for her to wake up. And every moment an anxious pain grew in his chest. 

Jane Doe the medical team called her. Stark called her Skeleton Girl. The comparison wasn’t far off, she hadn’t been much more than a skeleton when they’d found her. Tox screens showed that her body was going into withdrawal from whatever chemical cocktail Hydra had been keeping her on. 

Bucky didn’t care what they called her. He didn’t care what the others said, or that Steve warned him not to get his hopes up, that she might not know anything or doesn’t want to talk to him. He just needed her to wake up, he needed answers. 

**

He saw the searchlights first. Through the murky water, filled with garbage and debris, he’d kicked off from something hard and clawed his way to the surface. Spluttering as his head broke through the water, he forced the two bodies in his arms up into the life jackets waiting for them. 

There was no relief, or sounds of light hearted congratulations. No jokes from Dum Dum or bravado from Falsworth. The team sat in dumb silenece, too exhauasted and horrified by what they had seen to even speak. 

Bucky stood to the side. He watched silently as Banner laid Steve out on a gurney, patched the cut on his head and - Bucky tensed- injected him with a pain killer. 

Stark eyed him warily as if he wanted to ask a question but he thought better of it and turned to Banner. 

‘We should put her in restraints.’ Stark’s voice was tight as he looked down at the women. 

Banner huffed with annoyance or maybe disbelief. In the bright light of the quinjet, her skin was even more translucent, her veins mapped under her skin. Apart from her wrist and ankles, those parts were a knotted mess of red scar tissue. She wore thin paper underclothes that were marked with drops of blood and dirt. The ridges of her spine stuck out as Banner laid her on her side, pulling a blanket over her shivering form. 

Stark stepped forward. ‘Don’t look at me like that. We all had to deal with…-’ He struggled to find the right word. ‘...Skeleton Men. She’s the only one who took one down.’ 

Banner cocked his eyebrow sceptically. ‘Skeleton Men?’ 

‘Bruce, she ripped its head off! Whereas our one nearly damn killed us!’ 

‘It would have too if Hydra hadn't rigged the place to blow,’ Natatsha huffed in a pained voice as she shifted her broken arm in its sling. 

‘Why would she help us if she was working with Hydra?’ Sam asked, crossing the bay of the quinjet to stand at her side. 

‘Dead men tell no tales,’ Tony sighed unhappily. 

Sam’s voice was cautious when he addressed Bucky, as if he knew he was walking into dangerous territory. ‘How long has Hydra had her, do you think?’

His voice was barely a growl. ‘Decades.’ 

Banner cleared his throat and shot Bucky a sidelong glance as he opened his medical kit. ‘I’ll give her a sedative?’

It took him a few seconds to reply, and then slowly, he nodded. 

** 

Something was wrong. He was on the second floor looking up, the security door had been left swinging open and every few steps there was a trail of gauze, tape, a disposable paper slipper...like breadcrumbs, leading to the ground floor. 

The tight feeling growing in his chest got bigger. 

Bucky untucked the knife from the concealed holster on his ankle. He followed the trail, keeping close to the walls, his ears straining so the slightest sound. 

Bright sunshine shone in through the open doorway. It led to a patio that was mainly used by maintenance staff as a smoking area. It was sheltered from the wind and led out into the grounds of the compound. 

His boots skidded in the dirt, suddenly drawing up short as he breached the doorway. 

She was standing in the early morning sunshine. Her hospital gown was stuck to her sweaty body. Blood ran down her left hand where she had pulled out the IV. It pooled on the ground by her bony feet. 

Bucky watched silently, forgetting that he had a knife in his hand and not wanting to speak, as the woman slowly bunched her toes into the grass. Slowly curling and then uncurling them so that her feet dug into the earth. She turned her face too, to the right and then the left, slowly turning one cheek and then the other towards the sun. She shivered violently, Bucky couldn’t tell if this was from the sensations that were washing over her or the fever raging through her body. 

Steve would have stepped forward by now, Bucky thought, Sam would have said something charming and friendly but Bucky knew better. When he had finally escaped Hydra, he’d gone to the bank of the East River and waded into its murky waters. It smelt bad, he cut his foot on a piece of glass but words could not describe how good it felt to be able to feel again. Feel anything- hot, cold, wet, dry, to not feel hunger, to choose to be hungry rather than be forced to choke down a ration pack.

Bucky could understand missing the Sun after not seeing it for so many years. 

‘My people worship the dawn.’ The woman's voice was quiet and hoarse but not rough. She didn’t turn around as she spoke but Bucky got the feeling that she knew he was there. ‘It signifies when the Goddess  Sol escapes from Hati and Skoll’s jaws.’ 

She turned slowly, stumbling slightly, unsteady on her feet. Her dark blue eyes peered out of a thin pale face, her cheek bones were too sharp, her lips too pale. Her head was rudely shaved, scars and scabs showed where they had nicked the skin. Years without seeing the sun and being fed through tubes had taken its toll. She couldn’t have been much bigger than Natasha, the hospital gown hung off her frame like a rag doll, it had slipped off one shoulder which was almost skeletal. 

‘You look well for a dead man.’ She huffed, sweat ran down the back of her neck. Her strength was failing but she fought to keep her eyes open. 

Bucky hesitated before taking a step closer, slowly placing his knife on the floor as he did so. ‘My name is Bucky.’ 

Cautiously she eyed the blade as he kicked it away. ‘That is good, I never knew it before. I know your mother could not have called you Asset,’ she replied. 

Bucky let his shoulders slump, trying to make himself look smaller, less threatening. It was a part of his Hydra training that he’d rarely had to use but he felt like, regardless of her physical state, she would bolt at any moment and he couldn’t afford that- not now. 

‘We met before?’ He asked tentatively. 

She nodded slowly. ‘Many times.’

Bucky frowned. ‘You knew I wasn’t one of them?’ 

‘They feared me, you did not.' She let out a harsh breath through her nose. 'Only someone in similar chains wouldn’t fear a prisoner like me.’ 

‘I remembered you... ' Bucky's mouth felt dry and slowly, he tilted chin up and returned her gaze. 'I am glad I came back for you.’

She turned fully then, her teeth were bared, her eyes flinty and cold. They were full of sadness, grief- dark depths of blue that seemed to sting as they bored into Bucky. 

‘You should have let me die, it would have been the merciful thing to do-’She spat viscously. 

Bucky interrupted, a hard edge to his voice. ‘-But then you wouldn't be able to make them pay for what they did.’

‘What they have taken from me….’ a hoarse breath escaped her throat as her throat contracted. ‘No amount of killing will ever bring back.’ 

The hollow pain in Bucky’s chest suddenly bloomed into a cavern. Gnawing, churning, frothing hatred- a feral animal that lived inside of him, never asleep and always eating away at him, raised its ugly head. 

Numbly, he made himself look away. 

The women stepped away and then past him, wrapping her arms around her body as she continued out towards the woods. Bucky let her get 20 meters before her shaky legs gave way underneath her.

Bucky huffed as he scooped her into his arms. Her skin was damp and feverish, her eyes hooded and unseeing as her head lolled back. The morning sunlight through her face into sharp relief, the thin stubble covering her head had a red sheen to it. 

‘I can understand that feeling.’ Bucky hitched her body closer into his chest. It felt like he was carrying a bag of bones. ‘I’ve had things stolen as well,’ he murmured quietly, glancing down at her face one more time before kicking open the door to the compound. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I shall get the next chapter to you pretty soonish. Unseen Toskha is a lot different from Mind's Eye, the pacing and dynamics are a lot different so it would be really useful to get your feedback. 
> 
> Please comment, kudos and subscribe ...stay safe and have a Merry Christmas! x


	4. Phase 1: Chapter 4- The Reckoning Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Hydra is a bastard child. The creature you are dealing with is another beast entirely.' Valletta sighed heavily, centering herself before jutting her chin up and addressing the Midgardians. 'Where is the Asset?’
> 
> Steve Roger’s backbone instantly stiffened. ‘What do you want with Bucky?’ 
> 
> Valletta replied impatiently through gritted teeth. ‘I only hold half the story.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go!  
> I've been looking forward to posting this chapter for ages. We see events start to take sharp, the introduction of some interesting dynamics between Bucky and Valletta and the mysterious Decimation.
> 
> jörð bifask- world shaker

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep….

A nuisance. An annoying type of bird is squawking by the side of her head. 

She was in a deep, and thank the gods, a dreamless sleep. The bedding is clean. Her body is warm. 

The memories are jumbled but she knows she is no danger. There was no malice in their auras of the man with the star on his chest and the Asset.

Valletta thought as she sat up. The dawn sunshine, grass- real grass, not a dream! and then there was the Asset…. She squinted as she looked around, her head pounding. 

She may not have seen any malice in their auras but she had been wrong before- by Odin had she been wrong- which meant she was not hanging around to find out. 

‘Heimdall!’ Valletta snapped in a harsh whisper as she pulled a tube out of the back of her hand. It squirted blood across the clean sheets, impatiently she ripped up a pillowcase to staunch the bleeding. ‘Heimdall, you son of a troll! I need the Bifrost, please!-’ she’s speaking to herself as much as she is praying to the yellow eyed god. Desperate, pleading, barely daring to hope beyond hope.... ‘-I am no longer caged by runes! For pity's sake, Heimdall, get me out of this gods forska…’ 

She spun as someone cleared their throat behind her. 

He wore a thick pair of glasses and a nervous expression as his eyes flicked her bleeding hand, the broken squawking machine which had been thrown across the room and the shredded pillow. 

‘Glad to see you’re on your feet.’ Slowly, he took his glasses off and placed them in the top pocket of his purple shirt. 

‘Where am I?’ She snapped back as more people began to fill the doorway, peering in on her like she was some curiosity in a cage. 

‘You’re safe here.’ It was the man with the star on his chest but this time he was wearing ridiculous clothes that Midagardians think comfortable. ‘ I am Steve Rogers. Why don’t you tell me your name?’ 

Tall and broad with sad eyes, he stepped through the doorway and into the room of healing. Steve Rogers' aura was bright. Almost too bright to look at with her second sight. It seemed to ripple around him like a veil of gold fabric and sunbeams. Although Valletta could see no doubt or even anger in the human being, that only meant that he thought himself just in his cause- regardless of how misguided that might be.

More eyes peering in through the door. A young woman in red, a robot in a gold cape. Many eyes staring at her. Too many. 

‘We should give her some space guys. Staring won’t help things, in fact it's creeping me out,’ commented the man in purple. The crowd grumbled that he was a spoilsport and mostly ignored him. 

‘You said she snapped a guy's neck with a flick of her hand?’ Another one of the humans, they all looked very similar. This one looked young but her aura was aged like someone who had seen too much. 

‘Enough!’ Her throat felt like sandpaper, her legs were weak but she was not bound; and as long as she had some strength left in her she would take her chances. ‘Point me in the direction of a vessel that will get me off this planet.’ 

‘She’s an alien,’ someone gasped. 

‘We did rescue you. We have a right to know your name and why you were in that Hydra facility?’ A dark man stepped into the room behind Steve Rogers, Valletta backed away. He had one eye like the AlFather, all seeing, all knowing. 

Valletta didn’t like how he seemed to study her. She had had two life times of being someone’s laboratory rat. 

She had half a mind to ask after the Asset, why was he not here to tame this rabble of bumbling humans. He was the only Midgardian who spoke any sense. 

She made a noise of frustration and began to pace along her corner of the room. ‘I am Valletta, First of the Valkyrie. I serve the royal family of Asgard.'

‘Wait, you’re an Asgardian.’ The human whose name was Banner commented with delight. ' We work with Thor!’

‘You are mistaken,’ Valletta retorted coldly, her lip curling. ‘No crown prince of Asgard would ever lower themselves in such a way. Thor is many things but he would not stoop so low as to align himself with warriors of Midgard.’ 

‘Then pray tell me what I am?’ A deep resonating voice echoed through the healing room. The Midgardians seemed to part as the huge, golden haired prince stroad into their midst. 

Like the sun on a autumn day, low in the sky, it throws colour through a canopy of scarlet leaves. Beautiful but fleeting, you are humbled by this immense beings aura. 

‘My Lord-’ Valletta gasped, falling ungracefully to her knees, bowing her head. ‘You must forgive my impertinence but these humans are spreading the most ungainly…’ 

‘-These humans are my friends and you would do well to treat them as such.’ Thor's deep voice resonated like a dooming drum. ‘ You may stand, I’m not much for ceremony these days.’ 

Valletta struggled to her feet, weak as her legs were, she used the edge of the bed to pull herself up. The Prince watched her, not moving to help. For that she was thankful. She did not want anyone's pity. 

‘You have been asleep for 6 days. When Barnes told us that you had awoken….’ Thor struggled for the words, looking away uncomfortably. ‘My heart was glad. We, on Asgard, have thought you dead for many years.’ 

  
  


Valletta frowned, drawing her hands defensively around her. ‘Dead? But surely when I did not return the AlFather would have informed the Valkyrie. Heimdall at the very least would have seen my imprisonment.’ Her voice sounded high and thin.

‘Heimdall could no longer see you.’ Thor shook his head sadly. ‘As to my father’s motives, I fear he is beyond asking. He slips in and out of Odin's sleep.’ 

Valletta’s fists bunched, her throat contracting but her voice was small. ‘No one bothered to look for me, after so many years...not one of you.’ 

‘Now is not the time for this, Valletta.’ Thor ordered sternly, turning his back on her. 

The dark man stepped forward, his dark eye watching her face closely. ‘Tell us about Angel Fire?’ 

His aura sparked in and out of darkness. Flashes of yellow and gold bursting into life like a blacksmith’s hammer. He was an engineer, a designer, he brought things into being and made things happen to his specifications...and Valletta couldn't bring herself to care. 

_ Do you know? Do you know what I’ve been through!?  _

She wanted to rage, she wanted to finally scream and throw things. Muzzled and kept in the dark. She’d been in the darkness for so long her eyes ached from the soft glare of the electric lights in the ceiling. 

_ They may know what I’ve been through, but they will never understand. _

‘Why should I tell you anything?’ Valletta replied coldly. 

‘Valletta, we are trying to help.’ Steve Rogers spoke softly as if she was a wounded animal. Maybe she was that, but she was beyond anyone's sympathy. 

She didn’t bother to hide her contempt, pulling her lips over her teeth as she spoke. ‘It was humans that kept me caged, tortured me. I will not help them blow each other up so that they can do that to more people.’ 

‘These humans are not the ones who hurt you-’ Thor tried to reach for her, to rest his hand on her shoulder but Valletta quickly stepped back, shaking her head as she wrapped her arms around her thin body. 

‘They are all the same...My lord.' She added as an afterthought. ' Midgard, Jothenhiem, Nifhelm… anything outside of Asgard is chaos.’ 

Thor stepped towards her, Valletta’s back hit the back wall- vials of medicine tinkle in the cabinet. 

‘You have been away from Asgard a long time. Many things have changed-,’ Thor hesitated, troubled. ‘Asgard’s pride has caused countless troubles in the other worlds. We have lost sight of what we were supposed to be for the universe: a force of peace and harmony.’ 

Valletta slowly tilted her head so that her bony jaw jutted out as she glared. ‘Then maybe it is you who have lost sight!’

‘Don’t test me, Valkyrie.’ Thor growled, somewhere in the back of the Healing Room a screen exploded in a spark of electricity. 

‘Then do not ask the impossible of me!’ Valletta snapped back with more energy and strength than she really had. ‘I will not forget or forgive, any of it.’ 

Fury stepped forward, his hands open in a passive gesture. ‘And we are not asking you to. All we want to know is information.’ 

From a small black rectangle that he held in his hands, pictures of destruction and fire were flung into the air. The flickered as they hovered a few feet off the ground. 

‘Fury, this is too much. The strain of the drugs leaving her system was mentally taxing enough, I don’t know how she’s still standing to be frank with you…’ Banner stammered, worrying at his lip. 

‘I understand your concerns, Doctor Banner, but time is a luxury we do not have,’ Fury replied in a tone that did not welcome a challenge. 

Valletta let the Midgardians talk around her as she looked down at her hands. When had they got so thin and fragile? Would she still be able to hold a javelin, let alone throw one? She hated how spindly they were, spidery, like that of a corpse. Picking up a pencil, she slowly curled her fingers around it. I am like a child, Valletta thought with disdain. 

She let the pencil fall to the floor as she turned. ‘You will let me go if I help?’ 

Steve Rogers looked at her sadly. ‘We’re not keeping you prisoner.’ 

That answer did not make her happy. She understood what it was to be a prisoner. The line was clear. If she was not a prisoner, what did that make her? 

‘I do not know what an ‘Angel Fire’ is but I do know how it is made,’ she said slowly, looking down at the floor as she wrung her hands together. 

The man who made a buzzing noise- like he had the coil of a warp engine embedded in his chest, barged through the crowd peering through the doorway and elbowed his way past the One Eyed Man. ‘You do? Do you know it's not carbon based? How do they stabilize the…’ 

'Jörð Bifask,' Valletta breathed. 

A hoarse curse escaped from Thor’s gaping mouth. 'It cannot be…’ he stammered, mouth opening and closing. ‘ The Alfather outlawed the practice before I was born... How could these mortals know of it?' 

'Jo-rd bis...sorry, am I missing something here?' Banner asked, looking around at his colleagues. 

There was no emotion in her voice. It was dead and empty, just like her insides. She spoke to the floor, her eyes unseeing but images played around her head. ‘Jörð Bifask is a practice which transforms a Valkyries' wings into an unstable chemical state. Each feather has enough energy to power a hundred of your pitiful weapons.'

‘All of them?’ Thor asked numbly. Even if the humans did not understand the implications of her words, he did. 

Valletta couldn’t stand his pity. 

‘A finite resource, at least.’ Fury said as he stared at the floating images. 

‘Wait, what does that mean?’ A young dark man spoke from somewhere in the doorway. 

His aura was light and pale. It reminded Valletta of a trickling stream but she looked away quickly. Too many auras at once can make you lose clarity, lose sight of tiny details that could mean the difference between life and death. 

Thor hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at Valletta’s back. 'It is good news on that score, Sam Wilson, Hydra will not use them carelessly. They will save them to make the most destruction.’ 

'How many more do they have?' Steve Rogers asked Valletta but Thor spoke for her as she stared up at the morning sky through the large window. Her face was empty. 

‘Enough.’

Fury leaned over to Steve. ‘We need to talk to Barnes, if he knows anything about what Hydra is doing then we need to know.’ 

‘Fine.' Steve hesitated, a pale shadow crossed his aura but was gone as quickly as it had come.' But go easy with him.’

‘None of this will be easy,’ Fury replied. 

'Hydra is a bastard child. The creature you are dealing with is another beast entirely.' Valletta sighed heavily, centering herself before jutting her chin up and addressing the Midgardians. 'Where is the Asset?’

Steve Roger’s backbone instantly stiffened. ‘What do you want with Bucky?’ 

Valletta replied impatiently through gritted teeth. ‘I only hold half the story.’

‘Then tell us your half and we shall listen.’ Fury crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for her to speak. 

Valletta frowned, looking at the stupid faces of the Midgardians as they stared back at her. ‘I only know what I witnessed and that was not much. They knew what I was, they knew how to keep me bound and weak.’ 

‘ “They”?’ Steve Rogers asked, leaning back against a medicine cabinet. ‘I get the feeling you don’t mean Hydra?’ 

‘Decimation.’ 

Through the glass wall of the healing room, the Asset stood watching. His voice was deep and coarse, with an accent that she hadn’t noticed before but, undeniably, it was him. 

He was thinner that she remembered but he looked healthier. Sunburn dappled a high set of cheekbones that were partially hidden under a layer of unruly brunette hair. Instead of an upright military stance, he was hunched, trying to hide within himself as the others watched, he stepped past Steve and into the Healing Room. 

He didn’t look at her directly, keeping his eyes fixed on Fury, but he was watching her every move: she’d be an idiot to think he wasn’t.

‘They were a rumour. Some type of research division.’ The Asset hesitated, shifting uncomfortably. ‘I was only made to visit once or twice.’ 

‘And you met Valletta there?’ 

Numbly the Asset nodded. 

_ He’d met her there? _ … Suppose he had in a way but there was more, so much more. The span between them was mere feet but as she stood watching, studying the tilt of his shoulders and how he was forcing himself not to look at her, Valletta knew that they would be a conversation for another time.

‘Valletta?’ Fury asked.

‘I heard the name Hydra, but I was kept isolated. What I heard was murmurs from another room or hushed conversation. The guards and scientists did not speak freely around me.’ Valletta hesitated, suddenly uneasy. ‘Hydra was an arm of Decimation.’ 

‘Why haven’t we heard about it before?’ Fury asked. 

‘Maybe you aren’t very good at listening,’ Valletta replied dryly. 

Fury’s face turned steely and cold. ‘What does Decimation want? Their aims, goals, why haven’t they come onto my radar?’

‘I..don’t know-’ Valletta shook her head, bile rising in her throat, she stared at the floor not wanting to see their sympathy. ‘When I first...In the beginning I would ask them, why-why they were doing this?..And…’ 

‘Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni…’ The Asset’s voice echoed, his pale eyes finally falling on hers. 

The Asset’s voice made her flinch. It was the first time since her fever had broken that he’d looked at her, that she’d stared back at him. Voices, the Healing Room, the glaring lights fell away….She pulled with one hand - pushed away with the other. She didn’t know she was doing it but she couldn’t stop herself.  _ I know you and I'm scared to _ . The hurt w as a spider web, intricate, yet strong. Unfathomable. And yet there he stood, a familiar figure in a room full of strangers. Seconds ticked by and yet they did not look away. 

‘Is that more latin?’ Banner asked with an unhappy face. ‘It had to be the one language I didn’t do as an electorate.’ 

‘Consider yourself lucky.’ A small red headed woman stepped forward and approached a white board at the side of the room. After a few seconds she stepped backwards revealing a scrawl of red writing underneath. 

_ The banners of the King of Hell draw closer… _

‘Well, that sounds ominous,’ Sam Wilson snorted, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘What are you thinking, Nat?’ 

‘They kept her alive and in the dark for all those years, they must have had a reason.’ 

‘But then why use Angel Fire to get into a bank vault? Surely there would have been an easier way to gain access,’ Steve Rogers frowned at the pictures again, purposefully ignoring the dark writing. ‘We need to find out what was taken?’

‘Agreed,’ Fury said and nodded at the red haired women. ‘We need all available information on Decimation. The fact that they’ve kept themselves hidden for this long is a concern.’ 

‘On it, boss,’ Nat replied before strutting out of the room. 

‘Regardless of that, Thor, I’ll need you to make sure all valkyries are accounted for. We need to know if they’ve found a new supply,’ Fury said. 

Thor shook his head regretfully. ‘Winged valkyries are rare things. Only those born of a valkyrie are given wings by the Alfather. It has been violent times for Asgard - Valletta is the last.’ 

Valletta turned slowly, not wanting to believe her ears. ‘The last? That is not possible...what about Brunhild? Selka…’ 

The Prince’s face was grey with sadness. 

‘Not Torvi, she was only a novice!’ 

‘All valkyrie, Valletta, not just your born sisters.’ 

A pain was forcing its way up Valletta’s throat. ‘How could Asgard be brought so low?’ She heard herself say. 

‘If Valletta is the last that means that Hydra has got a limited amount of Angel Fire. So they won’t use it unless they absolutely have to. Which means we’ve still got time to find where it's kept and destroy it,’ Sam Wilson addressed Steve Rogers who nodded grimly. 

Valletta let out a harsh breath through her nose and drew herself up to her full height. ‘I wish you the best of luck-’ she turned to the prince. ‘Now, my lord, please call Heimdall, he is busy ignoring me.’ 

‘You cannot leave, not now.’ Steve Rogers glanced at the Asset as he stepped forward, it was subtle but Valletta caught it. 

Thor’s voice was quiet as he approached her, he blocked the doorway with his broad shoulders so that it obscured the crowd’s view. ‘Valletta, I need you to stay.’ 

Her mouth went dry. ‘Do not ask that of me.’ 

There was a ring of green in his left eye. A new scar ran up into his hairline on the right side of his face. There were a few strands of silver woven into his golden thatch of hair. 

‘I can’t help you. Not now…’ She looked away from Thor’s intense stare. ‘Not unless you give me back my wings.I am nothing without them.’ 

A small glimmer of hope had begun to burn in her chest ever since Thor had stepped into the room. He held the key to making her whole again. He must make her whole again, without them...she thought about the pencil she had held in her hand. 

Thor frowned down at her. ‘Were you not the Valkyrie who single handedly stormed the gates of  Eljudnir?’ 

‘That’s not me anymore!’ Valletta spat back, her anger suddenly bubbling up. ‘What use is it being the last born Valkyrie without my wings! My primary weapon. You need to find someone else to help you. I shall only hinder you.’

Fury spoke quietly, his hands pushed deep within the pockets of his coat. ‘Valletta, we need to assess the threat to Earth. You and Barnes are the key to finding that out.’ 

‘I have done my time on Earth. Your people took everything from me and you act like I owe YOU a debt of loyalty.’ 

A muscle in Thor’s jaw twitched with aggravation. ‘Valletta, you still serve the throne of-’ 

‘Then return my wings to me!’ She raged, her anger suddenly burning through her exhaustion. 

‘You know, I cannot do that.’ He looked away unhappily, shaking his head with frustration. ‘It is my Father’s magic, only he can restore them now.’ 

‘Wait, how come?’ She heard one of the Midgardians ask but like a bell going off in her head, she already knew the answer. 

The world had been pulled from under her feet. What she had known, all of her certainties, who she had been, who she would be...Gone. 

‘Because she is no longer worthy of them.’ 

The Asset broke the heavy silence that had fallen. ‘You should let her go.’ 

The man with the buzzing chest snorted darkly. ‘Knight in shining armour doesn’t suit you, Barnes.’ 

‘Says the man in the metal suit.’ 

Steve Rogers sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Tony, she’s been a prisoner of war since...Hell, since before I was even born! We can give her some time to-’ 

Tony slammed his hand down on the counter top. ‘We don’t have time! This stuff is out there: tasteless, colourless, underdertectable and,-’ he jabbed his finger in Valletta’s direction. ‘... she can help to find it.’

Thor shot Tony a disapproving look over the top of Valletta’s head. ‘They are ridiculous but they are a good people.’ He tried to make his voice sound light, friendly, as if the years did not way on him like a great weight. 

‘Forgive me if I don’t see the good in these midgardians, a lifetime in chains has left me cynical.’ Valletta retorted coldly, shrugging off Thor’s paw-like hand that rested on her shoulder. 

Thor sighed as he pulled himself to his full height, glancing at the others who were watching them closely. ‘All the more reason for you to stay.’ 

Valletta gritted her teeth together so hard her jaw hurt. ‘With all due respect, I am not staying here a moment longer than I need to, Your Majesty.’ 

‘A mission then,’ Thor said matter-of-factly, stubbornly, like a king addressing his court, no one dared to question him. ‘ Keep an eye on the Avengers. They need to be ready to take their place in the galaxy. And you, Valletta,-’ he smiled down at her kindly but his eyes remained sad as he studied her face. ‘You are to be Asgard's new emissary on Earth.’ 

Every fibre in her being warred against one another. Her life had been dedicated to the throne of Asgard only to be tossed away and forgotten like a piece of unwanted garbage. And now they needed her, after abandoning and betraying her, they asked the impossible of her once again. 

Her top lip curled as she growled out the words. ‘Is that a royal decree?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

A pulse of electric blue energy pounded through the air, sparks exploded. Asgard’s royal decree was final. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you all think! I would love to hear your thoughts 
> 
> Kudos and comment and don't forget to subscribe to my profile so you can keep track of my future stories that I have planned.


	5. Phase 1: Chapter 5- Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fury cleared his throat and looked up from his phone for the first time. ‘That is up to me to decide, Dr Strange.’ 
> 
> ‘As Sorcerer Supreme, I very much think it is,’ Strange replied in a deadpan voice as if daring Fury to challenge him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get tense....

He hesitated as he stepped out of the elevator and into the executive hallway. It was white and sleek, lined with chrome and pale light. Bucky paused, listening to the receptionist down the hall on the left, complaining that his boyfriend was a cheapskate. In the stairwell at the far end, a janitor was smoking a Bluestripe cigarette. 

The digital watch on his communication device buzzed. He was running late, behind schedule, not running to the mission dossier: the corners of his mouth lifted, enjoying the novelty. 

‘Sergeant Barnes, please-’ Fury said in welcome when he found Bucky lingering at the open doorway. Causally, gesturing to a soft armchair that sat in front of a large metal desk. 

Bucky ignored the chair and remained standing. The glass window that stretched the length of the office offered no cover, two outbuildings offered prime locations for a sniper to position himself. Bucky kept his body angled so that the window and the door were in his sights. 

‘I suppose, you are wondering why I asked you here?’ Fury commented lightly. His back faced Bucky as he poured strong liquor into two crystal glasses. 

He was favouring his left leg, a knee injury Bucky estimated to be 6 to 8 months old. He carried a Glock in a concealed shoulder holster under his turtleneck jumper and a smaller pistol in an ankle strap. 

‘Not really.’ 

Fury smiled slyly as he pushed the glass into Bucky’s hand. ‘ Glad we’re on the same page.’ 

Bucky pretended to take a sip of his drink, not letting the fiery liquid touch his lips. 

Fury settled on the corner of his desk. He smiled- his very best PR smile- it did nothing to soften his face or stop his good eye glancing switchblade Bucky had tucked into his waistband. ‘Valletta poses a significant threat to Earth. Before her involvement with Decimation and Hydra, from my understanding, she was a powerful figure in Asgardian culture. Now, she is without a cause and she is hurting.The only loyalty she seems to have is to you.’Fury paused watching Bucky’s face carefully. ‘What was between the two of you?’ 

But he kept his face blank, unmoving, the only sound was the faint whirl of his hydraulic arm as his fist tightened. 

Fury continued, ‘Captain America has told me not to push you and I respect him enough to take his advice but when it comes to Valletta, she is a loose cannon and I need to know what I am dealing with.’ 

Again he paused, waiting for Bucky to speak, to give himself away. But Bucky knew this game well, and he no longer had the patience for it. 

He gritted his teeth and looked away. ‘You’re asking me if we ever fucked.’ 

Fury clasped his hands in his lap. ‘Did you?’ 

Bucky breathed sharply through his nose, ‘No.’ 

‘Would you remember if you did?’ 

‘Probably not,’ Buck replied coldly. 

‘Then what was between you?’ Fury asked, leaning forward slightly.

_ What was between you… _ .Everything and nothing. A lifetime and a second. Bucky had no fucking clue and yet...and yet, he could feel his mind trying to pry open a memory, get his fingers under the lid and rip open Pandora’s box. 

It had been two weeks since she’d woken up in the Medical Bay. It had been two weeks since Bucky had been interrogated about Decimation in front of the Board of Directors and it had been two weeks since they had demanded that Valletta present herself. 

He was beginning to run out of excuses. 

Bucky shrugged. ‘A familiar face in a bad world.’ 

From the way that Fury’s pupil dilated, this was not the answer he wanted to hear. 

‘We would like to help Valletta, if we can. But we can’t do that if she doesn’t tell us anything-’ 

He’d started tapping his foot against the floor, it was subtle, barely visible motion but Bucky caught it.

‘- and if she doesn’t tell us anything, I won’t be able to protect her.’ 

Bucky knew a thinly veiled threat when he heard one. 

‘You want me to get information out of her?’ Bucky asked grimly. 

‘One specific piece of information, actually. I need to know how Angel Fire is made.’

‘ And what if I can’t do that?’ 

Fury let out a long breath through his nose and heaved himself off the edge of the desk. ‘Your record may have been expunged, Sergeant Barnes, but that does not mean that people will simply forget the role you played for Hydra. I had to play a lot of cards from my hand to allow you to stay here and out of jail. And suddenly you present us with Valletta and remember a top secret research arm of Hydra. The coincidences are piling up.’

Fury sat down in his high backed leather chair and steepled his fingers. ‘ My deck is running out, so unless you can present me with something to distract the sharks, I don’t know if I will be able to keep them at bay.’ 

***

The bed was too soft. She could hear a vehicle revving its engine in the garage two floors below. Huffing angrily, Valletta punched her pillow into a better shape. 

The days...Weeks, she corrected herself, had passed in more than a blur. It wasn’t a blur exactly, it was as if she stood on the outside of a fogged up window. She could see people laughing on the inside, Sam Wilson spoke too loudly, slapping Clint on the shoulder- all smiles and happiness and light; had there been this might light in the world before? Valletta didn’t know. She stood outside, her fingers rested on the glass; it was cold and dark outside, she felt numb but she wasn’t ready to feel the light again. 

She could nod, yes and no. She was even starting to eat solid foods again, under the strict supervision of Dr Banner. Continuously he would marvel at the regenerative powers of Asgardian physiology, blathering about how her teeth had remained in excellent condition and how her muscle wastage… Valletta couldn’t find it in herself to care. 

One her second day after Prince Thor’s departure, after holding up in her room for most of the week, she’d torn down a blanket from the wall and faced her reflection in a mirror for the first time in over nine decades. 

The person looking back at her was vaguely familiar, as if she had been a beggar in the street who'd been tossed a coin in passing. Her face was angled and sharp like a flint, she jaw cutting and her cheekbones like razors jutting against her pale skin. Reddish brown hair was growing in uneven clumps, tufty in some places and straggly in others. With an impatient hand, Valletta did her best to flatten it down. 

She flinched as someone knocked on the door. 

Captain Roger’s called through the door. ‘Valletta, are you ready? Dr Strange is waiting in the conference room.’

With a grim look at her reflection, Valletta gave her Midgardian clothes a last minute straighten. 

***

‘Hello, Valletta. My name is Dr Steven Strange and I am…’

The man looked like he’d made a poor attempt to dress like a court gigolo from the royal palace planet of Sunkippe. His cape flapped about him regardless of the lack of breeze and Valletta would have bet good money that he’d spent most of the morning applying kohl eyeliner. His aura was interesting though, dark blue with specks of white, it moved and shimmered like a sheet of silk.

However it did not make up for his ridiculous appearance. 

Tony Stark and Director Fury, as Valletta had recently learned, seemed to be in heated conversation in the corner of the room. Steve Rogers tried not to look inconspicuous as he watched her over the top of his datapad, bright blue eyes glancing at her every thirty seconds when he thought she wouldn’t notice. Dr Banner remained glued to the corner of the room, his eyes never left Dr Strange approaching his patient. 

Automatically, Valletta rolled up her sleeve and stuck out her left arm. 

Captain Rogers cleared his throat uncomfortably but Dr Strange tutted impatiently and tugged her cuff back down her arm. 

‘Surely, they told you I was not that kind of doctor,’ Dr Strange snorted matter-of- factly.

‘You want to experiment on me. What makes you different from any other kind of doctor,’ Valletta replied plainly. 

Strange let out a sharp huff through his nose. ‘I am Sorcerer Supreme, my experimentation of your physiology will answer far higher questions than…’

‘So, you admit that you are going to experiment on me?’ 

Slowly, Strange closed his mouth and tried to smile. ‘I suppose so but my realm of speciality is a bit more...nuanced.’ 

‘And by nuanced, I suppose you mean the metaphysical,’ Valletta replied dryly. 

Strange titled his head in surprise and cocked his eyebrow, even Captain Rogers set down his datapad and listened in earnest. ‘What do you know about the metaphysical world?’ 

Valletta held her hands in front of herself in a businesslike manner. ‘It is the primary role of the valkyrie, we help the spectral souls of the fallen travel to -’ 

‘-Valhalla?’ Banner interjected. 

‘If they wish, or we help them to move on.’

‘On? On to where?’ Captain Rogers asked, frowning as he crossed his arm. 

Valletta shrugged. ‘Wherever they want to go.’ 

‘Do you see dead people?’ Stark smirked, huffing at his own joke. 

‘Only their spectral forms.’ Valletta replied dryly. 

Strange pointedly ignored Stark. ‘So you understand the process of the spectral print?’ 

‘I do.’ 

‘We already tried that with Wanda, she couldn’t read anything clearly from Valletta,’ Steve added unhappily. 

He had begun shifting from foot to foot, his agitation flared blue and purple through his aura. He was concerned, frightened for her but why? 

Valletta watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye.  A muscle ticked within his jaw. 

‘Spectral prints work a little differently, Wanda only sees that the participant allows her to see. With spectral printing I am able to see what Valletta has experienced. I will also be able to assess if you have been affected by abnormal entities or materials.’ 

‘Then you sorely overestimate your bravery, Dr Strange.’ Valletta spoke darkly, her voice low and gravelly. Her knuckles were white as she held onto the edge of the conference table.

Dr Strange gave her a slow appraising look. ‘Let me be the judge of that,’ he replied cockily. 

‘But Valletta was kept in isolation,-’ Captain Rogers seemed unable to keep still, he’d stuck his hands deep within his pockets. ‘- if she says she didn’t see anything then I believe her.’

Strange began to roll up his sleeves. ‘I may be able to discern a small detail that she overlooked. The drugs and the conditions may have weakened her perception but I shall be able to sift through her memories of that time with an outsiders eye.’ 

Suddenly a thought occurred to her, a cold shiver of fear sparked up her spine as Dr Strange reached out to her. Valletta flinched back. ‘What will you do with the knowledge that you gain?’ 

For the first time, Dr Strange looked down at her sympathetically. ‘I will not… Unless it has some benefit, I shall not disclose anything personal.’ 

Fury cleared his throat and looked up from his phone for the first time. ‘That is not up to you to decide, Dr Strange.’ 

‘As Sorcerer Supreme, I very much think it is,’ Strange replied in a deadpan voice as if daring Fury to challenge him. 

‘Valletta, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We have more than enough information from the body cams-’ Captain Rogers began, stepping passed Strange and fixing her with an intense gaze. 

His pity was lost on her. Valletta didn’t need Captain America to be her hero, nor did she need his charity. His compassion was as much use as a wooden sword on a battlefield. 

‘But I do have to do this, Captain Rogers, you may not want to admit it but SHIELD and the administration are scared of me. You are scared of me and you need assurances even if you state otherwise.’ 

With a stiff nod to Strange, Valletta gripped the edge of the table. 

Those painful memories are books with chapters, deep and horrible; and so Valletta left them on the shelf to gather dust. She hoped one day she would pick them up and learn something, to gain a perspective on what she had lost. Maybe she can use them to re-see situations through the lens of their needs and traumas. 

Maybe she would use them one day but she was not ready. 

As Strange’s fingers came to rest against her temple, the conference room, Captain Roger’s concern, all of it fell away and she was left standing in a dark amphitheatre. 

‘This is the inside of your mindscape, you are seeing yourself as a spectral print,’ Strange’s voice drifted over the amphitheatre, his deep timbre echoing around the stone pillars and balconies. 

‘This is the training field in the Conclave on Asgard.’ Valletta heard herself say. 

Looking down at her body she found she was wearing her training armour, it still felt so familiar after such a long time. Her lightweight armour was porcelain white, made from the heart of a dying star and tougher than a dragon’s scales. Her fingers curled around the width of her javelin, perfectly balanced, needle thin, lethal- her hand had missed its weight. 

‘This is how you see yourself in your mind’s eye.’ 

‘Get on with your damn experiment,’ Valletta retorted coldly. 

The sky above the amphitheatre flickered as hundreds of screens appeared as one, all revealing a different horrific scene. Each one showed a different pain and humiliation, Valletta wanted to tear her eyes away but her muscles had seized as one memory consumed her mind. 

_ ‘De igne cinis _

_ Duo enim maledice ac maligne, _

_ Una enim fractionis, _

_ Inferna tepidum vigili…’ _

_ ‘How dare you attack me!’ _ Valletta’s voice spat, venom dripping in every word as the memory played out in front of her. 

At some point she closed her eyes, tears pouring down her face, and yet she couldn’t block out the sounds. 

_ ‘I am a Valkyrie of Asgard, violence against me is violence against the royal house…’  _

_ ‘ _ _ Qui pereunt, et avare rapiat, _

_ Cecidit, et resurrexit: _

_ Ferrum conteram ut rotam, _

_ Ut confletur in flamma; Novum sinistram.’  _

_ ‘You pitiful humans cannot expect to hold me. The Valkyrie will come, my sisters will come! Asgard shall reign fire down-’  _

_ ‘Close the rune circle-’ A man’s voice, cold and urgent, shouted orders, ‘- and nail her wings down!’ _

‘ _ No- _ ’ pitiful, for the first time in her life she sounded frightened.  _ ‘Please, not my…’ _

The conference room washed over her like a sudden wave of sensation. The smell of coffee, Stark’s overpowering cologne, the cold desk under her hands and she fell back heavily. The room swam, spinning in a dizzying array before Valletta’s eyes. She pressed her hand over her mouth to stop from vomiting over the carpet. 

‘So, did you learn anything from your mind meld?’ Stark’s insolent voice rose from Valletta’s left. 

Strange suddenly chuckled, then laughed, bodily shaking as he tried to speak. ‘You speak how many languages?’ Strange choked out between fits but it was too high to be amusing, it had a steely edge of fear to each strangled noise. 

Valletta swallowed the vomit that had risen in her throat. ‘14.’ 

Strange dragged his fingers through his salt and pepper hair. ‘But that mantra...the chanting voices, you didn’t understand what was being said?’

Numbly, Valletta shook her head. 

‘And you do?’ Banner sceptically. 

Strange in a frenzy. ‘You were right to call me. I mean no offence but this is beyond your skills.’ he flicks his wrist and red flames scribble in the air until the air is filled with writing. 

  
  


_ “Time of fire and ash, _

_ Two for the making,  _

_ One for the breaking,  _

_ inferna _ _ waking _

_ Man who lost and gained,  _

_ Fell and rose,  _

_ Iron to break the wheel,  _

_ Smelt in flame; A new left hand _

_ Angel of the Old world,  _

_ Lost and found  _

_ Forged; a fist to shatter the world.”  _

  
  


Captain Rogers crossed his arms over his chest, the blood slowly draining from his face as he read the words hovering before him. His mouth fell open but no words came out. 

‘What are we dealing with?’ Fury stepped forward, his voice was tight and strained.

‘To put it simply: Demons.’ 

‘Demons,’ Stark spluttered, choking on his green smoothie. ‘ As in horny little guys that sit on your shoulder and make you cheat on your highschool girlfriend...or so I have heard.’ 

Strange huffed impatiently, his fingers frantically tapping on his mobile device while the other blurred to form several hands as he began to draw complicated equations in the air. ‘I use the term ‘Demon’ in the same way we would use the term ‘Mammal’. Not all demons are bad, but when they’re bad, they're lethal. The Demon World is a parallel dimension to ours that is so interlinked our culture has seen their influence since...since forever.’

Dr Banner took his glasses off slowly, his eyes wide. ‘What was it that Barnes said “ The banners of the King of Hell draw closer”.’

‘ Hell, demons! What next? Are we talking about Lucifer and the Book of Revelations here? They can’t be serious, Decimation join our dimension with the demon world, cause hell on earth?’ Stark pinched the bridge of his nose and visibly counted to ten. ‘It sounds ridiculous.’ 

‘ But what have Bucky and Valletta got to do with this?’ Captain Rogers' frown deepened. 

Strange and Valletta share a look of understanding. ‘Valletta is a powerful magical being...I need to determine what the nature of the experiments were before I can determine why they were involved.’

‘Magic was never my strong suit,’ she admitted. 

‘What type of magic?’ Dr Banner asked with genuine interest.

‘Auras, mostly. A person’s aura is completely unique to them, almost like a fingerprint but it can also tell alot about them. It helps to know what type of person you are dealing with.’ 

‘Well, doesn’t that sound like a load of new age bullshit, I better get my chakras aligned,’ Stark snorted. ‘I bet you my favourite hot pink Porsche that that is a load of cr-’ 

‘You do not own a hot pink Porsche. Doubt me if you want Mr Stark but know I can see how heavily your uncertainty weighs on you. A person's aura not only tells me about the individual but also if they are lying. Lying causes a physical reaction on the body but also a momentary shadow on the soul. You may lie to yourself, Mr Stark, but not to me.’ 

Strange noisily cleared his throat. ‘I suggest Valletta come and stay with me at the institute where I can keep a closer eye on her while I look into this further.’ 

Two voices immediately shouted over each other. 

‘No! I must remain here by Royal decree, I am ambassador to Earth-’

‘Buck… it would be useful to have her around.’ 

Strange arched his eyebrow, studying Valletta then Captain Rogers. The corners of his mouth curled upwards. ‘Very well, as long as I can reach you, there would be no harm in you remaining in the Avengers Compound.’ 

‘That's it!? You're just gonna leave her here?’ Stark protested sceptically. He turned and shrugged passively. ‘Look Valletta, you’ve had it tough, I admit that but are we really sure here is the best place for you given the circumstances.’ 

It was the first time that Dr Strange smiled properly through the entire meeting in the conference room. His hand fell heavily on Stark’s shoulder in a way that was both friendly and threatening. ‘I can tell you with surety that if you do not hurt Valletta she will not harm you. In fact, she may be the best chance we have to defeat Decimation.’ 

Fury sighed heavily, turning his back to them, he gazed out the wide window out into the grassy paddock that surrounded the compound. His shoulders were stiff and tense but as he slowly turned back to face them, he fixed Valletta with an intense stare. 

‘Welcome to the family.’ 

**

She couldn’t have felt more out of place if she tried. 

Valletta rested against the wall, her arms across her chest as she watched the others. Natasha Romanov addressed the group...the Avengers. 

Trust a Midgardian to come up with a name like that. 

Then again, The Warriors Three didn’t exactly trip off the tongue either. 

They had laughed and joked, teased Vision about his outfit, Stark and Banner discussed a scientific journal, Sam and Captain Rogers complained about a sport called baseball...All the while, Valletta watched from the sidelines. 

She wondered where the Asset...No, not Asset. She wondered where Bucky was?

Natasha, the angry red head, stood in front with her hands clasped together in a business-like manner. ‘ We didn’t see it before because we didn’t know that we were looking for it. But in the last six months, four holy relics have been stolen.’ 

‘Holy relics,’ Clint Barton scoffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘I thought Indiana Jones got the Holy Grail back in 98’.’ 

Sam Wilson mouthed “IT’S A MOVIE” to Captain Rogers who shushed him impatiently. 

Natasha huffed through her nose. ‘When I say holy relics, I mean the legit real deal,we’re talkin’ fire and brimstone. These artifacts were thought too dangerous to be seen by the public. They were all stolen from private collectors with maximum security.’ 

Dr Strange, who was hovering several feet off the ground, interjected. ‘These objects were deemed-’ his tugged the collar of his cloak uncomfortably. ‘-safe to be left in human hands however given recent discoveries, we shall make retrieving them our top priority.’ 

A young man called Scott Lang heaved himself up from the sofa and peered at the dossiers that Natasha had laid out on the coffee table. 

His aura reminded Valletta of springtime, of new grass shoots and pale skies. He was a light hearted man. 

‘These robberies all have different MO’s. This one in Istanbul must have taken a team of six and a hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment to pull it off. Whereas this one in Ukraine looks like a smash and grab job. Whoever did this wanted to make sure we didn’t connect the dots.’ 

‘Decimation,’ Captain Rogers added grimly. 

Again, she felt on the outside of the glass looking in, as the team passed anxious looks to one another, making a point not to look in her direction. 

Gracefully, Strange slowly hoovered to the ground and preoccupied himself with buttoning the cuff of his robe. ‘Needless to say, after speaking at length with Director Fury, this issue has been passed over to my jurisdiction and I shall continue…’ 

His voice was drowned out by the several voices protesting at once. Clint threw up a rude gesture with his hand, Wilson was trying to shout over the raucous noise, Vision floated down to Wanda’s side as she began to radiate red energy. 

Valletta flinched and turned away from the living room.

Auras flared and sparked when tempers ran high. It became overwhelming, like looking too long into a kaleidoscope. Normally, she would have closed her Sight but she couldn’t risk missing a hint of treachery. 

‘I like your hair.’ A small voice chimed at her elbow. 

Valletta turned to find a small human looking up at her. She had dark hair that fell to her waist and a pair of bright hazel eyes that watched Valletta carefully. Valletta was not tall, in fact she was considered small for a Valkyrie, but this Midgardian barely came to her elbow. 

‘You are very small,’ Valletta blurted out without thinking and then immediately regretted it when the small human looked down at the floor. ‘I apologise, I-’ She struggled to find the right thing to say, ‘-I am new to Earth.’ 

‘You’re an alien!’ The creature’s eyes looked like they would pop out of her head as she began to hop up and down excitedly. ‘I’ve never met a real life alien before!’ She gasped, half shrieking half giggling as she crammed her hands over her mouth. 

Valletta discovered that she was smiling. ‘Well, I have never met a Midgardian as small as you.’ 

‘I am only 5!’ She pretended to stamp her foot in anger but couldn’t keep herself from erupting into a fit of giggles. ‘But I am almost 6! I am 6 in June. My Daddy, that's him-,’she pointed over at Stark who was arguing emphatically with Captain Rogers. ‘My Daddy says that when I am 6, he’ll let me play in his workshop.’ 

‘You are a child!’ It was Valletta’s turn to gasp. ‘I have only read about you! Where I come from, we live for a long time, so children are very rare,’ Valletta tried to explain. 

Valletta could see it now, she didn’t know why she hadn’t before. The child’s hands and face had a soft, pudginess like a babies. Her stature, though short, was not that of a dwarf but rather a miniature human. Her aura too was different from an adults. It was made up of simple colours, red, yellow, blue: simple colours for a child who had not yet experienced the difficulties of adult life. 

‘I’m the first kid you ever met!’ She hopped up and down like a little rabbit, then suddenly stuck out her hand. ‘My name is Morgan.’

Valletta eyed the hand sceptically- was she meant to do something with it? Instead she opted for a nod.

‘A pleasure to meet you, Morgan, Daughter of Tony. I am Valletta of the Asgardian Valkyrie.’ 

Morgan’s face turned serious for a moment as she leaned forward to whisper in Valletta’s ear. ‘Am I your first friend on Earth?’ 

Valletta hesitated for a moment before answering with complete honesty. ‘Yes, Morgan, I believe you are.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankyou as always for reading!  
> Please comment and kudos, I would love to hear what you thinks gonna happen. I have a lot of twists and turns planned for this story so please subscribe so you don't miss anything.
> 
> Hopefully I should be posting the next chapter in a day or so- you lucky lucky people.


	6. Phase 1: Chapter 6- Debts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky frowned, looking down at the ground so that strands of his dark hair fell out around his face. ‘And then we’ll be even?’ 
> 
> ‘We’ll never be even-’ her voice was barely a harsh whisper now, she gripped the edge of the counter top. ‘You didn’t need to come back for me but you did and …'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned into a huge ball of angst and ... I think its my favourite so far!
> 
> There is action on the way but for the time being join the pain train.

Valletta missed her hammock. They were strung from solid wood beams in the Valkyrie barracks in the Conclave on Asgard. The sound of the wood creaking, the thick sheepskin blankets and the gentle sway would lull her into a deep sleep where she would only dream of happy things. 

Those times were long gone. 

Rolling over for the hundredth time that night, Valletta punched her pillow so hard that feathers exploded around her bedroom. And with that, she decided to get up. 

Padding to the living room in her bare feet, Valletta swore under her breath in Old Norse, Niflheimian and a little known Trodhiem dialect. She cursed the cold tiles under feet and the shoddy tradesperson that made the bed and the seamstress who made the pillow, but for the most part she cursed the day she ever set foot on this godsforsaken planet. Tossing the remains of the pillowcase in the bin, Valletta began to shake feathers out of her hair. 

‘ We have punching bags in the gym.’ A pair of pale eyes watched her intently from a dark corner of the kitchen. 

Valletta’s body tensed instantly as a figure appeared from the darkness. It was a peculiar feeling to see the Asset- Bucky. Of course, she knew she would run into him sooner rather than later, but that didn’t change the squirm of anxiety that twisted suddenly in her gut. 

He was wearing what Valletta recognised as exercise wear. Clothing that certainly wouldn’t have been allowed on Asgard. His long hair was tied back at the nape of his neck and there was a towel haphazardly draped over his shoulder, he stood next to the kitchen counter holding a glass. 

‘I am aware,’ Valletta replied stiffly, impatiently brushing the last of the feathers from her pyjama top. 

He was watching her closely, made no move to approach her but the muscles in his jaw jumped.

‘They take a beating better than pillows.’ 

‘I KNOW,’ She snapped harshly, ‘ I just couldn’t sleep.’ 

Bucky took a sip of his orange juice in silence. 

The niceties of earth etiquette alluded her. What was she supposed to say? What was anyone supposed to say in this situation? 

So she fell back on what she knew. She closed her eyes to blink and then opened her Sight. 

Of course she’d seen the Asset’s aura before but he had been a different person then. Every time he had been forced to visit Decimation his mind had been twisted in a different way and his aura confused. Now he was different. He wasn’t shiny and new; his aura had scars and scorch marks but there were also signs of healing.

His aura manifested itself more as an image than a collection of colours. Everyone's was different. Bucky’s looked like a lonely candle, flickering in the window of a far off house. Clouds and rain swirled around it, lashing and attacking, but the single flame kept burning. 

_ It’s beautiful. _

‘You are also...awake,’ she struggled to say lamely. Before sighing and rubbing the back of her neck with her hand, ‘I am supposed to say something polite and vapid. That is Earth custom, I think.’ 

Bucky shrugged, ‘Do whatever suits you.’ 

Valletta sighed heavily and spoke in a low whisper that she only meant for herself, ‘What suits me is burning this place to the ground.’ 

The corners of Bucky’s mouth curled upwards slightly. ‘Need help?’ He replied lightly, surprising himself. 

Valletta perched on a bar stool at the far end of the kitchenette, keeping as much distance between them as she could and yet, not ready to retreat. She plucked a handful of grapes from the counter top, not eating them but needing something to do with her hands. 

Neither of them spoke. Bucky’s glass was empty. Valletta was pretending to contemplate the fruit as she thought back to her meeting in the conference room. 

‘I can see why you trust Captain Rogers. He is a rare person.’ 

‘He’s the star spangled man with a plan,’ Bucky smirked drolly, a lopsided grin suddenly appearing on his face.

‘A star ...what?’ Valletta asked, frowning. 

‘I… ‘ Bucky’s voice dried, the memory had been so clear but it had faded as quickly as it had come. 

They fell into an awkward silence that made Valletta squirm in her seat. 

‘Does your shoulder always hurt?’ Valletta blurted suddenly.

Bucky blinked, pulling himself back to the here and now. ‘...In winter mostly,’ he choked out the words as if they were difficult to say. 

They both knew he was lying. It always pained him. 

‘I can help.’ 

‘How can you help?’ Bucky asked cynically, finishing the dregs of his glass and slamming it down on the side with more force that he had intended. 

‘I can help,’ Valletta repeated. 

‘I don’t need no ones help,’ he said darkly. 

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Of course you don’t, that's why we're both still alive,’ Valletta said in a hushed tone.

His lip curled slightly as he stared back at her intently. ‘You can’t rely on anyone.’ 

This was a big omission. It wasn’t about Bucky or Valletta, he was talking about them-  _ we shouldn’t rely on anyone. _

A bomb could have gone off and she wouldn’t have heard it. The engine in the garage, the sound of the electricity buzzing through the walls- it had fallen away until she was alone with the single flame in the window. 

‘You want me to say it?’ Valletta snapped sharply, taking a harsh breath through her nose. 

She hated that she had nowhere to hide, she hated that she felt so exposed and, more than all those things put together, she hated that fact she couldn’t stay mad at him. 

‘You helped me! You saved me, let me repay some of that debt.’ 

Bucky frowned, looking down at the ground so that strands of his dark hair fell out around his face. ‘And then we’ll be even?’ 

‘We’ll never be even-’ her voice was barely a harsh whisper now, she gripped the edge of the counter top. ‘You didn’t need to come back for me but you did and …I can still help with your shoulder.’ 

Bucky hesitated but then nodded slowly. His pale blue eyes were wide and fearful as he watched Valletta get to her feet and round the table, to stand directly in front of him. 

He was a lot taller than she remembered, a whole head taller than she was, Valletta had to crane her neck to meet his eyes. Maybe her mind had built him up to look a certain way. He looked younger somehow, maybe it was because his eyes were clearer; no longer dulled with drugs, or that his skin was no longer sick and pallid. 

And yet, after all that, he still felt familiar. 

Instinctively, Bucky tensed when she reached for him. 

‘Relax,’ Valletta said sternly, ‘this shouldn’t hurt.’

His hand shot out to snatch her wrist just before her fingers touched him. ‘What are you gonna do?’

Her lip curled as she locked her wrist and pulled it out of his grasp. It was instinct for both of them. ‘Magic,’ she replied simply. 

Bucky arched his eyebrow. ‘Magic?’ 

‘Exactly.’ 

Her hand shot out faster than he thought possible and Bucky was fast. 

It was like his shoulder was suddenly plunged into scolding and freezing water at exactly the same moment. Both hot and cold, his eyes watered and his ears buzzed at the sudden intense sensation running down the left side of his body. 

With a half swallowed curse, he stumbled backwards, hitting his hip against the kitchen counter as his knees buckled, only catching himself at the last moment. Expecting pain, Bucky gritted his teeth as he stood panting but when nothing came he experimentally rolled his shoulder. 

His metal fingertips tingled as if he’d just had an electric shock and his hip smarted where he had bashed it but apart from that he felt nothing. 

There is no pain. 

He had lived so long feeling the scrap of metal against bone and the sting of rogue currents running through his muscles, his skin had been cauterized, the tissue sewn and re-shaped, bones bolted together; he’d lived like that for so long that now all he felt was the absence of pain, there was no relief. 

Valletta was slowly curling and uncurling her fist as if it ached but said nothing as he slowly rolled his shoulder, his hand pressing down on his chest where the metal joined with the skin. 

_ “She took the pain away.”  _ The Winter Soldier spoke softly in the back of Bucky’s mind. He could feel his other self peer out of his eyes, studying the women before him. He knew her from before. 

_ “What is she?” _ Winter’s tone was quiet and measured, not as a hunter about his prey but as a wolf seeing another of its kind through a patch of dense forest. 

**Does it matter?**

**“** _ Not to me.” _

‘So you're magic?’ Bucky heard himself ask lamely. 

‘A gift from Frigga. Unfortunately, it only works on other people, I can’t use it on myself,’ she answered warily. Magic was not her strong suit, using it always left her feeling drained. And in the physical state that she was in, Valletta was lucky to stay on her feet.

She was already moving away, retreating, putting the kitchen island between them but not sitting back down. Valletta had ventured into the No Man’s land, that was enough for now.

Bucky cleared his throat. ‘Steve showed me what Strange found in your head….the chanting.’ 

Her head snapped up, her voice a mixture of hope and trepidation. ‘Do you know what it means?’

‘Nothing good.’ 

Valletta inclined her head, ‘Goodnight,’ and turned to leave.

‘You’ve used magic on me before, haven’t you?’ Bucky called just as her hand came to rest on the doorframe. 

Slowly, Valletta nodded. ‘I reached out to you, tried to clear your mind.’

‘When ...when Decimation used us for experiments, you kept me from going insane.’ 

She turned- she needed him to understand- she’d failed him. ‘It was never enough, I could never break their hold fully...Bucky-,’ 

It was the first time she’d said his name, his real human name. It felt odd on her tongue, but strangely the flame inside his aura flared bright as she spoke the word.

‘-I tried so many times to help you but I was never strong enough,’ Valletta admitted bitterly. 

His face was pale, mouth pulled into a grim line as he growled out the words but they were not spoken in anger, ‘It’s the reason I am still here.’ He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to look away.

Valletta smirked humorously, ‘Only you can judge whether that is a good thing or not.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More on the way!
> 
> Please comment and kudos!
> 
> Hopefully, I should get the next chapter to you next weekend x


	7. Phase 1: Chapter 7- Tar and Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Uskit'r!’ She swore as a black tentacle wrapped around her ankle and slammed her body into the ceiling like a ragdoll. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this and the next chapter were supposed to be one but when I was writing them, this chapter gradually got longer and longer and longer so it made sense that I split them up.

Velletta frowned as she studied the books in front of her. 

Midgardian books... who would have thought that these stone scratchers were capable of stringing two words together. 

Captain Rogers had placed them in a neat pile by her door a few days ago, a handwritten note tucked into the front cover of the first volume read- ‘ _ I thought you would find these interesting. Kind regards, Steve.’  _

They had sat there for the best part of a week, first on a patch of ground by the door, then on the windowsill, then under the bed. 

‘Those look boring,’ Morgan chirped as she concentrated, her tongue stuck out as she peeled stickers out a picture book to strategically place around Velletta’s lodgings. 

‘I haven’t read in so long,’ Velletta found herself admitting as she made the bed again, tucking in the blanket and straightening the pillows. 

She kept the room very clean and tidy. She stood like a ghost, moving from one corner to the other, not living in the space but merely existing in it. It felt too big, too foreign. After so long being captive in a small space for so long: semicircle of runes precisely 4 foot wide: the distance between the window and the door felt like a vast ocean that Velletta could drown in. 

Whether it was customary on Earth to decorate walls with images of flowers and crudely drawn animals, Velletta was unsure. All space was shared at the conclave, you had no personal possessions as a Valkyrie. The only other room that she had known was the rune lined cell Decimation had kept her in. 

What she enjoyed most was the wide window which you could open wide and smell the river.

At night Velletta would often fantasise about throwing open the fastenings and letting herself fall into the night, her wings catching the air at the last moment and soaring up into the sky…

Atleast it was better than venturing into the Living Room. Had there always been so much noise in the world? The electricity buzzing through the walls, clunks of machinery, the sound of people chewing. 

And then there was the looks she got. Natasha Romanov studied every move Velletta made. A cloud of distrust weighed heavy on the women’s aura. Sam Wilson pretended to be her friend, he spoke of his family, told her about leisure activities she should try. Velletta could only nod in response. 

And then there was Bucky. Although Velletta shunned the communal rooms like a plague site, yet she found herself searching for him. Peering into hallways and glancing over her shoulder. Not to speak to him but just knowing he was there could be enough. 

Morgan had taken one look at the austere walls and empty closet, and dashed away to grab her sticker book. She had taken it upon herself to visit Velletta every day for the past two weeks. With her mother speaking in Geneva and her father easily distracted, Morgan often ended up sitting at the foot of Velletta’s bed asking her questions about space. And to her surprise, Velletta grew to enjoy the company. She enjoyed spending time with Morgan’s aura and her innocent questions kept her mind from wandering.

‘Velletta, why aren’t you going on the mission?’ Morgan’s singsong voice called from doorframe where she was busy sticking butterflies. 

Raucous noise drifted in from the living room. The Avenger’s scurried back and forth, interns carried equipment, Banner had a pair of welding goggles on as he worked on Stark's suit of armour. She’d even heard Bucky speaking to Captain Rogers in a low voice from his bedroom. 

‘I…-’ She did not want to admit that she was still weak. She did not want to admit that she didn’t know what strength she had in her hands or that her mind often played tricks on her. ‘I haven’t fought in a team for a long while.’

‘But you are an  _ um-missury _ ? Isn’t that your job?’ Morgan frowned with concentration again as she selected a chunky purple pen from her rucksack and began drawing something that was either a bird or a house on the bare wall. 

‘I wouldn’t know.’ 

Stark burst into the room like a carnival arriving into town; flashy and brash. ‘Alright, we’re rollin’! Goodbye baby girl,’ Stark swooped in, armour and all, and kissed Morgan on the top of the head.

‘Velletta, are you sure you’ll be okay to stay here on your own?’ Steve asked, peering round the doorframe behind Stark who was busy bouncing Morgan on his hip. 

Velletta didn’t like so many people crowding her space. ‘I am not on my own, I have Morgan.’

‘And Friday, don’t forget that. She’s here if you need her but she's running diagnostics on the artifact so try not to disturb her, she gets cranky.’ Stark was speaking more to Morgan than to Velletta, as he wiped a smudge of pen off her cheek. 

‘If Dr Strange wanted to take control of this investigation he should have done the analysis himself.’ Velletta heard Natasha complain from somewhere in the hallway. 

‘How could I say NO to a religious relic that seems to throw the laws of physics out of the window. Did I tell you that it has its own gravity force?’ He called stubbornly over his shoulder. 

Captain Rogers pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Whatever it is, it's trouble. If it’s like Strange said and Decimation is out of our league then we shouldn’t be poking around with it.’

Stark bounced Morgan on his hip again and let her run her fingers over the triangle shaped light in the centre of his chest piece. ‘I trust Dr Strange and so does Fury. He wouldn’t have asked us if we couldn’t handle it.’

‘I think we are massively underestimating it. We have no real idea what it's used for. You’ve seen the recordings from the Decimation tunnels,’ Captain Rogers replied testily. 

Stark set Morgan on the floor, who immediately dived back to her sticker book. ‘What’s wrong, Cap, afraid of a little hocus pocus?’ 

‘The Resurrection Urn is not a joke, Tony!’

As the two glared at each other, Sam Wilson took that moment to stick his head between them. A red set of glasses sat atop his head and he gave Morgan a toothy grin.

Velletta watched from the far corner of the room, her back pressed back against the wall. 

‘What are you guys gonna do while we’re out?’ Sam asked Morgan who stuck a unicorn sticker to the toe of his military boot. 

‘Disney!’ The little girl giggled. 

Velletta blinked. ‘What is a Disney?’ 

‘Disney!’ Morgan shrieked in response and hurtled out of the bedroom, her sticker book trailing after her. 

***

Disney turned out to be a group of players made to look like animals who danced and sang on the flat box attached to the living room wall. The story focused on a rabbit who wanted to be some type of warrior who had made an alliance with a wily fox. 

Velletta frowned as she tried to get a sharp bit of popped corn out from between her teeth. It was too salty and bitty, but try as she might, she couldn’t seem to stop eating it. 

‘Velletta, what did you want to be when you were little?’ Morgan asked, snuggling deeper into her blanket which she had buried herself in. 

The rabbit and the fox were running through a dark alley, dashing and leaping, Velletta found it hard to keep track of them. 

‘I don’t think I ever was little,’ she said, squinting at the screen. 

Morgan sat up with interest. ‘But you were a kid, like me once.’

Velletta tore her eyes from the screen and turned to the little girl, pulling a pillow on to her lap. ‘I am a born Valkyrie. The Valkyrie don’t have childhoods.’

‘But what about your mom and dad?’ Morgan asked, her dark eyebrows crinkled together. 

Velletta hesitated, she’d never been asked this before. On Asgard it was just how it was. Female children born of a Valkyrie joined the Conclave, male children were sent to train as the Royal Guard. 

‘I...I don’t know about my father but my mother was a Valkyrie so I was given to the Conclave to train.’

‘So who looked after you?’Morgan asked, her frown growing deeper. 

‘I...I looked after myself. I can’t remember a time before that but it made me strong.’ Velletta tried to reassure her but somehow even she didn’t believe it. 

‘Sounds lonely.’

‘I had my sisters-’ Velletta reiterated, ‘ -the other Valkyrie who I trained with.’

Morgan squinted given her a shrewd look. ‘But were you happy?’ 

Velletta’s mouth opened and closed several times as she looked for the answer. Valkyries didn’t need happiness; Valkyries didn’t need friends or mothers and fathers, or toys and laughter, or reassurance or….

‘I was not unhappy.’

But had they even been given the choice? .

Whether this convinced Morgan or not, Velletta wasn’t sure. Instead the little girl began to chew the corner of her pillow as she mulled over what Velletta had said. And then, as quick as tossing a coin, her head snapped up in a beaming smile. ‘Share a fruitcup with me?’ 

Fruitcup… it didn’t sound like anything too complicated. How could Midgardians mess up fruit in a cup. 

‘I would like that very much.’ Velletta nodded as Morgan bounded off the sofa, darting for the fridge that sat under Stark’s well stocked drinks bar. 

Velletta sighed, stretching her arms as she got to her feet. She might be barely on her feet but her muscles protested like she had spent the last day in the training room. And yet clothing hung off her like a scarecrow-

She stopped dead in her tracks. 

‘Morgan?’ Velletta called over her shoulder. 

The little girl soon appeared at her side, popcorn still in hand. ‘What is that?’ Morgan asked.

Velletta wanted to say “You mean you don’t know either!” but something in the way Morgan’s voice trembled stopped her. 

It oozed under the door that led out into the hallway like a pool of foul water. Slow, stealthy almost it was creeping across the floor, spreading out as it made its way across the room. It looked inky and thick, foul bubbles popped, letting out a low hissing noise and the reek of sulphur. At the very centre of the growing pool, something pressed against its service: not like a ripple on water but a hand straining upwards against its thick rubbery surface. 

  
  


Velletta steered Morgan back with a gentle hand on her shoulder and together they slowly edged backwards. ‘Friday, what is this?’ 

‘Miss Velletta, my scans sh-ow..that thi…’ the AI ‘s voice stuttered and died. 

‘Friday? Friday!’ Morgan demanded, her voice sounded too loud. . 

Instinct is a strange thing. It is our primeval centre, we hide our rage, our fear, our pain but , when all is said and done, it is where we go to find our courage. 

‘Get behind me.’ Velletta gritted her teeth, she tried not to gag as a wall of sulphur hit the back of her throat. ‘Morgan, listen to me. Do you know if there are any weapons in the Compound?’

‘Maybe the training room?’ Morgan murmured against the small of Velletta’s back.

She kept her hand on the side of the little girl's head, turning it away as a misshapen arm heaved against the surface of the tar, clawing and scratching to pull itself up. 

Carefully, Velletta walked them backwards, not taking her eyes off the growing pool. ‘I don’t have access to that room yet, can you think of anywhere else?’ 

‘No..’ Morgan said hesitantly. 

‘Okay, do you know any good hiding spots?’ Velletta kept her voice steely calm. 

‘The... workshop has a big lock on the door but I’m....’

The tar churned, foul smelling, heat haze rising from its inky surface. Velletta had to blink twice as a head and a misshapen torso began to force its way out. It spilled on the floor, lashing out limbs to pull itself upright as another body began to emerge behind it. 

The tar figure took a tentative step forward, shambling. Steam hissed from droplets that slid from its long limbs: skeletal and thin, each limb was too long for its body. Its arms dragged on the floor as it hunched over, trying to stay upright like a puppet with its strings cut. Its mouth opened, more like a tear ripping through the black sticky mess where its face should be. At first nothing, only rising steam but then a piercing screech like the whine of metal against stone erupted from its mouth. 

Velletta heard the bowl of popcorn smash as it fell from Morgan’s hands. Her hands were trembling. 

‘Get to the workshop, lock and barricade the door. Do not let anyone in but me. Go now!’ 

The creature moved like a viper, quick and jarring, snatching at Morgan’s pigtail as Velletta hurled the coffee table into the air. With a growl of frustration the creature morphed its arm into a horrendous spike, like more a black spear, lunging wildly at Velletta’s head. 

She heard the door of the workshop slam from above her on the mezzanine balcony that overlooked the living room.

The creature was advancing; one step after another, stumbling and slithering across the floor towards the stairs. Velletta heaved the sofa up in front of her, blocking its path, but with sickening ease, its black arm sliced it in two like it was a slice of bread. Stepping over the remains, it kept coming. 

‘What do you want?’ Velletta growled as she backed away slowly. 

‘The...k-ey,’ The creature spoke in exhales, low and wheezing. 

Velletta didn’t need Sight to see the creature for what it was: a Dummy. An empty vessel created to be filled with someone's evil will. It had no soul or mind or spirit of its own, even its words belonged to its master. 

‘There is no key here,’ Velletta spat back.

The pool of tar churned, more creatures emerging, snarling, arms and legs tangling with each other as they crawled from the pool of tar. 

‘You lie!’ 

It darted forward, clawing at the space where Velletta had stood. But the Valkyrie was too fast, light and agile, faster than a bolt of lighting. Repelling off the wall, Velletta grabbed a fist full of curtain and hauled them down, rail and all, casting it over the boiling pool. 

A scream filled the air but it was not of frustration or anger, it was fear. 

Morgan…

One of the Dummies had made it up to the balcony. Pounding on the glass door of the workshop. Black tar fists hardened into mallets as it tried to break down the glass. Morgan’s face was pale with fear. 

‘Morgan-’ The name escaped her lips as she hurled herself across the room, landing on the shoulders of the dummy, ankles locked, eyes clenched together, Velletta heaved with all her Valkyrie strength. 

All around things exploded, unholy screams. Her hands burned against the molten tar as the head pulled from the body, thick strands trailing after the limb. The body dropped into a liquid pool only to begin to churn once again. 

‘What are these monsters?’ Velletta growled low in her throat, her burnt hands now curled into fists. ‘Friday, can you hear me?’ She shouted as she shattered the glass staircase with the heel of her foot and ripped the banister from its mountings. 

Lining her body up, right arm extended back, left palm stretched out in front of her as a guide, Velletta hurled the banister like a javelin. A perfect arc through the air. It found its mark, pinning a dummy who was crawling up the fireplace. 

‘Miss....Cannot seem t..to…’ Friday’s voice stuttered through the sound system barely audible over the sounds of screaming. 

‘Get a message to Captain Rogers, tell him that his mission was likely a ruse and that an unknown enemy has breached the defences.’ 

Velletta looked down at her hands, they were already beginning to blister. It was good to feel something after so long, she thought numbly. 

‘And tell Stark that Morgan is in imminent danger!’

‘I will try…’ Friday’s voice stuttered once and died. 

‘Heimdall, if you’re looking to make an entrance this would be the time to do it.’ Velletta swore, ducking as a Dummy leapt at her head. They were climbing the walls like ants, each foot, each hand print leaving scorch marks in its wake. 

‘Oh no, you don’t.’ Velletta growled, teeth bared as she smashed a porcelain vase and began hurling the broken pieces expertly at the crawling creatures.

They let out high screams, shuddered and fell to the ground, slowly expelling the shards from their bodies. 

‘Uskit'r!’ She swore as a black tentacle wrapped around her ankle and slammed her body into the ceiling like a ragdoll. 

Up and down and up and down...white lights blazed in front of her eyes. The contents of her stomach churned. 

With her remaining strength, she pulled her body up and slashed at the arm with all her might. The glass was dull, the tar arm tore only halfway through. Velletta flailed, half thrown, half falling, slamming into the brickwork over the fireplace and crumpling to a heap on the floor. 

‘Velletta!’ Morgan cried, sending cold panic through Velletta’s blood. Her face was pale as she watched on in horror through the glass door to the workshop.

Velletta forced herself to her feet. The tar monsters were pushing their fingers under the seal of the security door. Long tendrils of black stickiness reached towards Morgan as the little girl edged back as far as she could. 

‘Let us pass or die,’ rasping, gravelly voice came from the throat of the nearest creature. Its featureless face watched her, tilting its head this way and that like a caged animal. 

‘ Dying in battle would have been a kindness for me-’ Velletta wiped her bleeding nose with the back of her hand, ‘-but it is not Morgan’s time.’ 

Her hand darted out, plunged into the fire and hurled a burning log into the creature’s mouth. It screamed, a bubbling jaw fell away from its body. It’s body sparked and cracked, curling in on itself. 

Fire! Velletta thought desperately, making her body move as fast as she could. Her burnt hand screamed in pain, as her fist closed around the neck of a bottle that had fallen out of the upturned drinks cabinet. 

The dead eye sockets, empty and bottomless, yawned open as a skeletal hand tried to reach for her but the bottle was already airborne. It found its mark. Liquid skimmed across the antique carpet, flames shimmering brilliant blue as the tar creatures scrambled over themselves away from the fire. 

This was her chance. 

Velletta pulled her shirt over mouth and nose, her eyes stinging from the fumes, her hair beginning to crackle. Distantly she heard Friday trying to string a sentence together. 

Her wings would have made short work of the ten feet jump to the mezzanine balcony, Velletta thought bitterly, as she repelled off the adjoining wall and hauled herself up on the edge of the destroyed banister. 

‘Velletta!’ Morgan cried as she helped pull Velletta up 

When had her arms become so heavy?

The little girl’s face was pale, tear tracks marked her cheeks as she desperately pulled on Velletta’s arm. The muscles in her arms were trembling, her head was beginning to swim but gritting her teeth, she let Morgan help pull her to her feet.

‘Morgan, hold on to me and when we hit the ground roll.’ 

‘O-okay.’

But Velletta was already running,Morgan’s ankles locked around her waist, her head tucked into her shoulder as Velletta leaped off the balcony. She fumbled, landing awkwardly on her ankle, knee slamming into the ground.

‘No!’ A hoarse demonic voice screamed to her left. In the corner of her eye she saw tendrils lashing out at her but she forced herself to keep running. Vaulting over burning furniture and dodging tar limbs that slashed and whipped at her. 

Morgan’s heartbeat pounded against her own. A rapid drumbeat of the gods, it played a familiar song for Velletta. 

Glass shattered. A million tiny pieces flying through the air as they fell, plunging through the window and hurtling to the ground.

‘Ack!’ Velletta gasped involuntarily as they hit the ground. Her ankle gave way and she got a mouthful of dirt. Her knees trembled, she didn’t need to look behind her. 

Disembodied screams filled the air, smoke and explosions sent debris hurling after them as Velletta tried to run. She managed as step and another but pain shot up her leg like she had stood on a nine inch nail. 

_ Damn the gods! _

‘Listen to me. You must run-No!’ Velletta silenced Morgan’s protest by straightening her pajama top and turned the little girl's chin so she could no longer see the flames rising behind them. ‘You need to listen to me, Morgan, I cannot run but you must.’ 

Tears filled her eyes, her dark brown hair was wild around her face, sticking to her soot covered frow. ‘I’m scared,’ Morgan whispered, her lip trembling as she tried to fight back the tears. 

‘Good.’ Velletta nodded grimly. ‘Being scared helps to keep us alive. Now what must you do?’ 

Impatiently, Morgan wiped away her tears with her sleeve and bunched her fits. ‘Run.’

In that moment, Velletta thought she was going to burst with pride. Morgan’s aura had taken a hard edge, each colour was sharp and razor like, shrouding the little girl like a suit of armour. 

‘Run. Do not stop.’ An explosion behind them spurred her on, she pushed Morgan away and urged her on. ‘Don’t stop.’ 

Velletta watched grimly as the little girl disappeared towards the distant treeline. Her purple pyjama top jumped this way and that as Morgan sprinted as fast as her little legs could run. 

She won’t see me die, at least I have saved her from that. 

‘Foolish.’ A voice, half a gurgle, half a hiss. 

Velletta smelt the creature before she heard it. Its body was charred, scorched angrily like burnt plastic. 

‘If she is out of your clutches then it was not foolish,’ Velletta replied shortly. 

‘We will find her,’ the creature hissed angrily.

Velletta squared her shoulders. ‘You will die trying, I can assure you of that.’ 

More screams were rising from the burning compound, Velletta could make out black figures crawling from the wreckage. 

The creature lurched forward. ‘Tell us where you sent her?’ 

‘And forego the pleasure of killing you slowly, I think not.’ 

The Dummy was circling her now, its featureless face moving up and down as it was inspecting her. ‘You are injured, you are alo-’ 

‘Who is your master?’ She interrupted, impatiently. 

The creature cocked its head. 

Velletta snorted with derision. ‘I want to know who holds your leash so that once I am done with you, leach, I can return the favour onto your master.’ 

The creature craned its neck towards her, letting out a low growl that Velletta would have recognised anywhere. ‘We are Decimation.’ 

At that precise moment a noise split through the sky. Velletta threw herself to the ground, arms covering her head. Sudden intense heat, ear splitting explosion, she hissed as globules of boiling tar and earth splattered in every direction, landing on her outstretched arm, instantly burning through her shirt. 

The ground thudded as Iron Man landed in front of her. 

‘Tony Stark, there was an ambush on your stronghold-’

The red faceplate of his suit retracted with a hiss, his face was pale and his eyebrow was bleeding but his eyes were all fear and fury. ‘Where’s Morgan?!’ 

‘The woods, I told her not to stop running,’ Velletta replied simply as she ripped the sleeve of her shirt and suddenly found that her legs had given out.

Overhead the engines of the Quinjet roared, sending the rising smoke and debris whirling into the air. 

Stark’s mask slapped down over his face and his jet boots began to power up. ‘Calvaries arrived. You done good, Scully.’ 

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of every chapter I shall put in a translation of all of Velletta's Norse phrases;  
> Uskit'r- Troll shit
> 
> Please subscribe to my channel, comment and kudos


	8. Phase 1: Chapter 8- Strength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony hesitated, before turning and addressing Velletta. ‘I want you battle ready. You’re done saying that you’re broken. Get back in the ring and get back to fighting weight, we’re gonna’ need all the help we can get.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter is a little late- last week was like a shit sandwich that I am glad is over. 
> 
> We're coming close to the end of Phase 1 and I am so excited to kick the hornets nest open so the action can really begin! The next chapter will be a Drabbles chapter so if you have any requests please let me know.

  
  
  


_ The ground was wet and cold. He wore no shoes.  _

_ Tactical disadvantage… _

_ He shivered violently, his teeth rattling in his head. Pain beneath his eyes, rising headache.  _

_ ‘Who gave you the authority to-’ barked a man wearing a green military uniform. He was beefy, middle-aged and smelled faintly of a strong beer and dried meat. There was a patch of shaving cream behind his ear and one of his eyelids drooped where it had been sliced in a brawl. The scar twitched nervously.  _

_ ‘Commandant, I think you will find all the information you require in this communique,’ came the cool reply.  _

_ The Commandant hesitated, a muscle jumped in his jaw as he tried not to swallow his own tongue. Military trained family. Born in Volgograd, he puts most of his weight on his right foot, frostbite damage on his left.  _

_ All this the Winter Soldier saw as he struggled to stand: forced upwards by tough hands and hard faces. Freezing air made it difficult for his lungs to work. His leg muscles cramped, his eyes flinched away from the glaring fluorescent lights, ears ringing. His naked body cringed away, seeking desperately for the abyss of the stasis chamber.  _

_ All the while scientists scurried around, studying, scribbling notes: a man stood watching, a man in a black suit.  _

_ Danger... _

_ ‘Sir, his heart rate is picking up.’  _

_ ‘Good.’ He was tall and thin, tapered to a point like a rapier. His suit, his hair; every edge was sharp as if with one quick movement would slice your throat open with a papercut. His skin had no colour, there were no visible veins: no lips, only a slash like line across the bottom of his face. If it wasn’t for the lights flashing from the stasis chamber, he would have looked like he was carved out of marble.  _

_ His dark glasses seemed to spark as the man turned his head to address the Commandant. ‘Are those credentials satisfactory, or would you like to contact the Commissioner?’ _

_ ‘No-no,’ Commandant Alexie replied quickly, too quickly, slapping shut the dossier. His pulse hitched, sweat beaded on his brow under the brim of his Officer’s hat. ‘You still should have let us know that you required the Asset. I could have prepared him for you.’  _

_ The man in black smiled as if he’d never done it before. His slash like mouth pulled back to the gums, showing a set of pointed misshapen teeth. ‘We have an interest in the specimen.’  _

  
  


**_No, no...not in there!_ **

‘Buck- _ Buck.’  _

The scene skipped. Bucky’s head slammed back against the hull of the Quinjet as they hurtled over the Atlantic Ocean. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand. 

Bucky usually looked forward to missions. He could pretend that he was stepping back into a previous life; when he wasn’t a monster, when he wasn’t a shell of a man. For a few short hours, no matter what situation they were called in to deal with, he could almost see that man he’d been: Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes. Stark might still silently despise him, Romanov would never forgot the lessons that he had taught her, Steve would always blame himself for letting him fall but atleast he could feel the shadow of the man he had once been. 

But today it was not to be. As the Quinjet landed, the jets kicking up clouds of dust, in whatever third world hell hole that they had landed in and it became clear that the UN distress beacon had been hacked: Sgt. Barnes had drifted into the darkness as the Winter Soldier raised his head. 

Steve sat down heavily in the seat next to him, waiting for Vision to float passed them before speaking in a low voice. ‘They’re getting worse.’ 

‘I can handle it.’ 

Steve sighed heavily. ‘Buck, you don’t need to  _ handle _ it. Its okay to-’ 

‘No, it’s not!’ Bucky replied in a harsh whisper, ‘none of this is okay.’ 

‘You’re right.’ Steve braced his elbows on his knees, leaning forward as he spoke softly. ‘It's far from okay but I guess it's something you get used to tellin’ yourself.’ 

Bucky looked away regretfully. He was such a selfish asshole. He walked and talked like Captain  _ Fucking _ America, but at the end of the day, Steve Rogers had gone in the ice alone and woken up 70 years later. They’d both lost people; families, friends, time and here Bucky was actin’ like a crybaby. He was the one who looked after Steve, that's how it had always been, that was his job. 

Bucky mirrored Steve, nudging his shoulder as he did so. ‘You’re so full of crap, you know that right?’ 

Steve smiled ruefully, ‘So you keep telling me.’ 

The Quinjet shook violently. Agent Romanov caught the Professor’s elbow before he stumbled backwards over a box of equipment. The Professor managed a grime smile. 

Everyone was on edge as they raced back to the Compound. The static coming from the Friday’s comms link had been enough to send Stark launching himself into the sky like a shooting star. The others just had to sit by and wait it out as the Quinjet made its way back. 

  
  


Bucky began to fidget again, his knee bouncing.

‘How much longer before we make it back?’ Clint Barton, the Archer, called over the noise of the engines from his seat on the opposite end of the plane. 

‘There is a weather system moving against us from Nova Scotia, all power has been diverted to boost the engines.’ 

With the Winter soldier prowling, clawing at the cage within his head, Bucky was barely keeping it together. The metal hull vibrated again as they hit another pocket of turbulence, the engine whined; too many voices, too many moving parts to track...He couldn’t breathe. 

Some days it was like trying to run through water. Numb to the world around him, Bucky kept his head down while he went through the motions. Other days he was like a live wire, every sensation frying his nerve endings; reliving the smallest detail, cut of a knife, sting of a syringe, being locked inside your head as your body moves against you. 

_ ‘Hydra likes to keep you docile,’ the man in black tutted, pacing restlessly from one side of the cell to the other.  _

_ It was dark save for the flickering lights, casting gloomy shadows around four stone walls, each lined with meticulously carved sharps and runes. Figures moved in the shadows just out of sight from the Asset’s keen eyes.  _

_ ‘We prefer something a little more subtle.’ The thin man smiled like he was in pain and then spread his arms wide. ‘Think of this place as a “ _ _ sine carcere seras”.’  _

_ He began to approach, stepping into the semi circle and, with a skeletal hand, withdrawing a long, lethal looking blade from within his suit jacket. Darted forward, drawing up short, millimetres from the Asset’s face. He paused a moment, waiting for a reaction, and then pulled his smile tighter.  _

_ ‘Do you know what “ _ _ sine carcere seras” means?’ He sneered and then allowed himself a humourless chuckle. ‘You may speak, Asset.’  _

_ ‘No, sir.’  _

_ ‘ “Sine carcere seras” means a prison without locks.’ The blade flashed, blood arched through the air as his knees hit the ground. He could barely gasp for breath as all the strength left his body and darkness covered his eyes.  _

_ The moon rose high over the East River, he looked out from the Brooklyn Bridge and watched the light play off the water. ‘Wake up. Wake up! This is not your end. You need to find your way out…’ _

You’re thinking about Velletta?’ asked Steve. 

Bucky swallowed hard, wiping his face again. ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’ 

‘We’re going as fast as we can, she’ll be alright.’ Steve was rubbing his hands together, bouncing his knee and checking the read out on his communicator every two minutes. 

‘Are you tellin’ me or yourself? Cause I don’t need it right now, Steve,’ Bucky replied irritably. 

‘Bucky, I’m only trying to-’ 

‘ _ I know _ \- I know you are, Steve, but that's it, she shouldn’t have to be okay. We didn’t get her outta that hell hole to chuck her into a war zone.’

Steve cocked his eyebrow matter-of-factly. ‘Buck, she’s a Valkyrie.’ 

He sighed heavily, looking away, ‘So everyone keeps telling me.’ 

‘Whatever happened-’ Steve began for the millionth time. This was an old argument. Steve was trying to be a good friend and Bucky would never deserve him. 

‘Steve,’ said Bucky in a warning voice. 

‘-What I saw in Decimation’s catacombs, whatever the two of you went through, she’s a survivor- you  _ both _ are.’ 

_ “He doesn’t understand _ ,” The Winter Soldier spoke from somewhere deep inside him. 

**_I don’t ever want him to._ **

****

***

The Team crowded round the ramp as it slowly descended. 

Too slow! Bucky ground his teeth, flexing his mechanical fist as the hydraulics of the ramp buzzed. The Winter Soldier panted, evenly sucking the air into Bucky’s lungs, sharpening his eyes and preparing his muscles.

They didn’t speak, they didn’t need to. They all saw the smoke cloud before they reached the Compound. Billowing a thousand feet in the air, the Team had been silent as they came into land. 

And yet, as the ramp lowered, revealing the smoldering remains of the Avenger’s Compound ...the world went oddly quiet. 

Velletta was silhouetted by flames and carnage. Her spiky hair looked frazzled in places, her face pale under streaks of soot and dirt. Her shoulder looked badly burnt, her left hand had a large cut across the palm and from the awkward angle of her foot, Bucky could see that her ankle was broken.

And yet after all that, she forced herself to stand up, pushing away Banner as he tried to carry her. She stood tall and proud and stubborn, jutting her jaw out as she tentatively began to hobble.

_ ‘We underestimated her,’  _ Winter said slowly. 

**I know.**

In slow motion, debris and ash fell the sky, there was a far off explosion; Velletta’s eyes found his. In that second, some of the tension, pain, exhaustion that was clouding both their minds seemed to drain away until all they felt was relief. 

Relief. 

It was strange, alien almost but whatever the hell they had both been through, they had been through it together. They saved each other. There were no secrets, no places to hide. They were companions together in the darkness. Then and now. 

Steve went to block her path, be the noble hero, scoop her into his arms and run all the way to medical but with a firm hand on his arm, Bucky stopped him. 

Remaining silent as Bucky stepped passed him, he fell in at Velletta’ side. Grabbing her uninjured arm and helping to take some of her weight, together they made their way to the infirmary. 

****

She didn’t wince as Banner dabbed her shoulder with green goo. It smelt like antiseptic, stinging her nose worse than it did her shoulder. Her body had begun to ache, muscles that she had long forgotten about cramped uncomfortably and the ridiculous cast that Dr Banner had insisted on putting around her foot was already beginning to itch. 

She would tear it off as soon as she was back in her quarters. 

The adrenaline had worn off. The blood pounding in her head was replaced by frustrating questions that no one seemed to have the answer to. Banner was nothing but polite, his hands gentle and professional, moving her into the best position as he applied ointments and balms to her skin.

As the Room of Healing, or the Infirmary as she had recently learnt, was one of the few rooms that was unaffected by the smoke, the Team perched on counter tops and beds, speaking around her as if she wasn't there. 

Velletta was too lost in her own thoughts to really care.

‘Turn your head for me, please,’ Banner’s hand gently moved her jaw, steering her head to look away as he smoothed more foul smelling cream over her shoulder blade. She flinched as he touched one of her scars. 

‘Does that hurt?’ Banner asked instantly, pulling back his hands. 

Numbly, she shook her head. 

His hands were gentle- too gentle. His voice was soft- too soft. She smelt smoke, felt grit on her hands, blood soaking through the fabric of her clothing. 

Why was she so calm? Captain Rogers was pacing around, making laps of the infirmary every 45 seconds and then alternating direction. Samuel Wilson had spent the last 20 minutes sweeping up glass even though Stark had a dozen robots on ‘Operation Clean up’. Once Morgan was tucked into Stark’s arms he hadn’t let her go. The little girl had soon fallen asleep, drooling contently on his shoulder. One handed he took a swig of coffee as he reviewed a holographic read out of Friday’s matrix. 

Bucky seemed to be the only stationary figure. He kept his back turned away, looking out of the smoke streaked window. His aura was troubled but he stayed. 

A small part of Velletta was thankful for that. 

‘And the EMP was from an unknown origin?’ Stark asked for what seemed like the thousandth time. 

‘That is correct, sir, I could not place the source or the frequency of the pulse blast. All I can tell that judging by the disruption it caused my operating system, it could not have been caused by any man made device.’ 

Captain Rogers crossed his arms over his broad chest as his frown deepened. ‘Do we have an analysis on the-,’ he turned to Velletta.

‘Dummies, I’m calling them Dummies. Whatever they were, they were being controlled,’ she added.

‘How do you know they were being controlled?’ Banner asked, looking up from Velletta’s shoulder. 

Velletta hesitated, it was always difficult to put the Sight into words. ‘They had auras but they were grey. More of a sense of absence of feeling or emotions than anything real, save one intense connection that seemed to drive them. Most likely the connection with their master.’ 

‘My analysis is at 60% but early findings suggest that they had a high concentration of sulphur,’ Friday chimed. 

‘That explains the smell.’ Wilson wrinkled his nose. ‘But what did they want?’ 

Stark placed his hand gently over Morgan’s ear. ‘I think that is pretty obvious,’ Stark said, sounding positively dangerous. 

‘Strange’s artifact must be the key that the Dummies were searching for,’ Steve began unhappily, his anger steadily growing as he spoke. ‘I told you, Tony, that this thing was trouble...’ 

‘Actually-’ Velletta interrupted, ‘I think there is more to this. If the artifact was the target, why did they try to follow Morgan out of the Compound?’

‘But why?’ Banner asked, ‘ Who have you pissed off so bad that they would come after your daughter?’ 

Stark cocked his eyebrow. ‘Are you kidding? Half the UN Council, Russia, most of North Korea…’ 

‘Then why steal the Resurrection Urn?’ Steve argued stubbornly. 

Tony closed his eyes, hugging Morgan tight to his chest, sighing once before steadying himself and gently laying her down in a nearby chair. 

‘I hate to say. And I mean, I really hate to say it but...Cap is right, we shouldn’t have done this favour for Strange.’ 

Wilson’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, Banner did a funny double take. Velletta didn’t know human behaviour well but she knew enough to know that this omission was significant. 

Steve nodded grimly, he opened his mouth but Stark was pacing, striding around the room, tossing a cotton ball up from one hand to the other as he did so. 

‘I gave him my trust. He said it was beyond our pay grade- let him handle it?Sure thing! Let Dumblebore deal with the Skeleton Men and the X-Files test tube babies and the mutated freaks in cells- and we’ll deal with the relatively normal stuff!’ 

‘Is he okay?’ Samuel Wilson asked, leaning into Banner’s side.

‘I highly doubt any of us really are.’ 

‘-And you know what! I bought it, I bought the whole “  _ this is beyond your skills”-,’  _ Stark mimicked Dr Strange’s deep baritone and waved his hands manically through the air _. ‘ _ And I trusted him, that  _ sonofabitch _ and you know I what I nearly lost-’ he drew up short suddenly, his chest heaved as he stared at Morgan as she snuggled deeper into the armchair. 

‘Tony, none of us knew that this would happen-’ Banner tried to interject but Tony was having none of it. 

‘Then why did Strange give us the Resurrection Stone if he knew it was so dangerous! Why did any of this happen if his Lord and Mighty thought it was above our pay grade. Why was my family put at risk and his wasn’t-’ Stark paused to catch his breath before drawing himself up to his full height. ‘We’re taking over.’ 

From the far corner of the room, Bucky slowly turned, listening intently. 

‘Tony-’ Steve began. 

‘No! He let us down and needlessly put lives at risk. If it wasn’t for Velletta...This is our house,  _ our rules _ !’ 

Steve huffed through his nose, crossing his arms over his broad chest. ‘I was actually going to say that I agree with you.’ 

‘ _ You- _ Well, of course you do. I am always right.’ 

Captain Rogers did not look amused. ‘Decimation remained hidden for years. We know nothing about who they are or what they are capable of. We know nothing about demons or how they will strike but when they do it will pose a huge threat to Earth.’ 

Banner cleared his throat as he stripped off a pair of blue plastic gloves, tossing them into a bin. ‘And I hate to sound like a cliche but they made it personal now, for both of you.’ 

Stark laughed cynically. ‘Yeah, when they brought the fight into my home and attacked my daughter- damn right, did they make it personal but they miscalculated one thing- They didn't realise Velletta was still on Earth which gives us the upper hand.’ 

‘It gives you nothing,’ Velletta snapped irritably. ‘I am a shade of my former self, without my wings I have a fraction of my strength and no-’ 

Stark blew a wet raspberry. ‘Scully, you’re half dead and yet you still managed to protect the fort. You burnt half of it down but in my books-,’ Stark looked away uncomfortably, fiddling with a piece of wire in his hands. ‘We owe you.’ 

Something deep inside Velletta sparked, inflating like a balloon. It felt good to be needed again.

‘So, how do you want to play this?’ Captain Rogers asked, business like. 

Stark thought for a moment, steepling his hands under his chin, before wheeling around and counting off on his fingers. ‘If we’re agreed that  _ Dr Supreme Asshole _ needs to be kept in the dark….Natasha, throw some money around, lets see what intel is out there. I want to know what these guys have for breakfast- use Cap if you need to-.’

Steve cocked his eyebrow as if to say _ oh, will you indeed.  _

‘- Jollygreen and me will get the Compound back up and running, maybe make some improvements too. I’m thinking that we put in a new matrix in the-.’ 

‘Tony!’ Steve barked. 

‘Right,  _ got ya _ .-’ Tony hesitated, before turning and addressing Velletta. ‘I want you battle ready. You’re done saying that you’re broken. Get back in the ring and get back to fighting weight, we’re gonna’ need all the help we can get.’

***

It was raining. Droplets tapped against the glass of her window, chasing each other down the pane. 

Rain. 

Who would have thought you could miss something so simple but she couldn’t help it watching each drop appear from the dark night sky and slip out of sight. She wanted to run out into the Compound, tilt her head back and feel it on her skin.

_ Foolish _ ! Velletta scolded herself, turning angrily away from the window and pacing out into the living room. 

There was still a faint smell of wet paint and smoke but Operation Cleanup was mostly complete, save for the staircase and the chunks of stonework that had been ripped out of the fireplace. Repairing the bar had also been a team effort once word got out that it had been the first thing to be destroyed. 

Velletta was not surprised to see Bucky. He rested against the back of the sofa, looking out the window at the dark expanse of falling rain. He wore exercise clothes, a damp towel was slung over his shoulder, and his hair was tucked back behind his ears so that she could see the moon reflecting in his pale eyes. 

Maybe it wasn’t so foolish. 

‘You did good today,’ he said quietly, not looking away from the window but loud enough for her to hear.

Velletta huffed softly and came to rest at the far end of the sofa so she could also watch the rain. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have,’ she replied. 

‘You don’t really mean that. You like Morgan.’ 

‘She is an innocent. But it has only encouraged Stark, do you really want him... want Captain Rogers to know what Decimation is capable of?’

Bucky looked at her in surprise. ‘You don’t want to know?’ 

He looked pale in the dull moonlight, his skin was covered with a fine sheen of sweat- he must have been sitting there for some time because goose bumps covered his arms. 

‘I have no idea what I want anymore.’ Velletta looked out towards the storm, distantly she heard a clap of thunder but somehow it sounded hollow. ‘What if we were monsters before they ever got their hands on us?’ 

‘Then you should be afraid of me,’ Bucky replied dryly. 

‘Are you asking me or telling me that I should be afraid of you?’ Velletta shot back.

‘Both?’ 

‘Tell me what you know about Valkyrie?’ She didn’t know why she asked it but she did. 

‘They don’t teach that in the army-’ Bucky shrugged slightly. ‘Falsworth would know though, he was the learned’ one in the Howlin’ Commandos.’ He said this last part almost wistfully, his eyes becoming unfocused for a moment. Deep within him, his candle like aura flickered brightly for a moment before growing dark. 

‘ “Howlin’ Commandos”, are they berserkers?’ 

‘Summit like that.’ For a fleeting moment the corners of his mouth curved slightly, showing a ghost of a smile. 

They sat in silence, letting the rain fall and watching an occasional fork of lighting pierce the sky. There was nothing uncomfortable, no prying eyes or expectations, he didn’t watch or study her like Captains Rogers often did or fill the air with noise like Samuel Wilson and Stark. 

It reminded her of when he had taken her arm and helped her to the infirmary room; there was no lingering fear, she didn’t snap shut her Sight and recoil. She felt calm and a hint of warmth. 

‘You gonna stick around and see this through? No one would blame you for leaving,’Bucky said suddenly, inclining his head so that dark strands of hair fell about his face and hiding his expression. 

‘I have to stay, it was a royal decree,’ she replied without emotion. 

‘We don’t have to take orders anymore.’ His hand gripped the back of the sofa so hard Velletta could hear the mechanics of his arm. 

‘Than why are you here?’ Velletta asked bluntly. 

He hesitated, a muscle jumped in his jaw. ‘Because I don’t have anywhere else to go.’

A flash of pain crossed his face and Velletta had the sudden uncomfortable urge to change the subject. 

‘There is a planet called Lichi on the far side of The Quill Nebula. Gases given off by the mining depo in the atmosphere over hundreds of years have turned everything on the planet bright blue; the soil, the plants, even the sun shines like lapis lazuli-,’ She paused as a clap of thunder rolled over the grounds of the rainy Compound. Velletta sighed as she got to her feet. ‘If I was free of my royal obligation, I would go there and stretch out on the blue beaches.’ 

'They serve beer on Lichi?’ Bucky asked lightly. 

'The best this side of The Quasi Delta,' she relied over her shoulder as she made her way to the door of the living room. 

‘You make a habit of not sleeping?’

Velletta’s hand hesitated on the door frame and she looked back at the tall figure silhouetted against the night’s sky. ‘Apparently.’

‘Same time tomorrow night?’

She didn’t reply. They both know she didn’t have to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please kudos and subscribe, let me know you are out there!
> 
> Beserker- an ancient Norse warrior who fought with wild or uncontrolled ferocity


	9. Phase 1: Chapter 9- Living pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! I am please to say that this chapter got so huge that I had to split it into two so I should- fingers crossed- by adding the next chapter shortly. 
> 
> \- History   
> \- Flight of the Valkyrie  
> \- Back to Basics   
> \- Aviation   
> \- Sorcerer of Ox  
> \- Automobiles are evil  
> \- Hit the mats  
> \- Jokes  
> -Questions   
> \- Lethal 

**Drabble 1- History**

Days bled into weeks and weeks into months. The going was slow in every sense of the word. Nerves ran high and tempers were short. 

Stark was filled with manic energy, trying to chase down every lead that Agent Romanov found. He became obsessed with the idea that there could be a whole new world for him to explore and discover. Soon his workroom became littered with runes and scripture, bad drawings of the ‘Brooklyn devil’ and Decimation’s prophecy was scrawled countless times across the wall as if the more he wrote it the more he would understand it. 

Captain Rogers drilled the team, preparing them day and night for whatever eventuality. And yet the days dragged on. He didn’t easily show his frustration but Velletta could sense the tension churning slightly under his cool exterior. 

Summer nights began to get shorter, Velletta slowly filled into her clothing, muscles building once again as she began to train. Her time between the gym was spent watching and learning. She’s spent more than hundred years chained and gagged, her humanity stripped from her; Velletta survived by eating, drinking and binding her time. Now she needed to remember what it was to be alive once more, to enjoy the company of the people around you and savour the taste of food. Without that, she might as well have remained a captive. 

Velletta lurked in the corner of the workroom, Stark had set her up with a workstation and a computer and dozens of nameless digital devices that she couldn’t name. Her main job was to verify the credibility of the information that Agent Romanov received. Midgardians seemed to have a strange fascination with the demon world and yet the majority of what they knew was intertwined with religious dogma and fantasy. 

She’d spent countless hours reading about ‘shadow hunters’ before Friday had pointed out that they were characters from a book. 

Today she was combing through the images taken from the catacombs. Numbly she watched the footage taken from Steve’s body camera. 

‘This is all?’ Stark asked Friday as he chugged a green smoothie. 

‘ I am sorry, sir, credible sources of a ‘demon world’ or of Decimation appear not to exist.’

Agent Romanov, who was leaning against the door frame, crossed her arms over her chest. Her aura sparked with annoyance, she wasn’t used to failing. ‘Velletta, tell me again how you got here- what _ exactly _ were your orders?’ 

This was an old routine by now. Over the passing months Vellatta had been able to piece together the fragmented memories into a logical order- If she happened to leave out a few details that was her own business. 

Twisting in her chair, Velletta addressed the small group, her voice was dead and mechanical. ‘The Mistresses of the Conclave told me that the Allfather had requested my presence. He gave me orders to take a message to Midgard via the Bifrost and place it into the hands of King Roosevelt. Odin said I was to follow his instruction as if they were his own.’ 

Stark sighed theatrically, ‘I cannot tell you how cool it is that you met Teddy Roosevelt-’ 

‘-King Roosevelt made me welcome in the White Palace and then directed me to  Attorney Gener al  Charles Bonaparte -’ 

‘Who we know formed the FBI in 1901 which must be around the time you came to earth,’ Romanov interjected. 

Velletta swallowed thickly and turned away. ‘But I never arrived...It becomes confusing after that.’

Friday chimed in, ‘We have no records of foreign relations with Asgard before 2011 and Charles Bonarparte died in dubious circumstances in January 1901.’ 

Velletta knew all this. She knew there would be no records. She also knew how Charles Bonaparte had died.

Agent Romanov watched her closely. ‘If Odin originally sent you to Earth and allowed you to remain imprisoned, are we to assume that he also knew what Decimation was up to this whole time?-’

Velletta didn’t move a muscle, her breath caught in her throat- she could almost hear Romanov’s train of thought. She knew what the woman was going to say but to put it out in the open was to make it real. 

‘-But you already realised that, didn’t you?’ 

For a moment Velletta chose not to say anything. She turned away from their prying eyes, Stark’s were full of pity, Romanov’s were cold with her own memories. Instead she picked up a coin from the desk and began to roll it over her fingers. 

‘Prince Thor said as much to me, though I don’t think he realised it at the time- “ _ The Allfather keeps his own council _ ”. He can keep Heimdall in line- his allegiance is to the King but the Valkyries allegiance is to the throne and the royal house.’ 

‘What are you saying?’ 

She fumbled. The coin spun through the air and pinged off the leg of her chair, disappearing under the desk. The spell is broken.

‘Maybe it's not a coincidence that the Valkyrie were wiped out.’ There was no emotion in her voice, it was dead, empty. 

‘So it's not a coincidence that you are the last Valkyrie-’ Romanov paused, giving Velletta an appraising look. ‘ Someone went to a lot of trouble to try and make sure you were never found.’ 

‘Or maybe I’m just another soldier who was left behind by their government,’ Velletta said as she got up and left the room, leaving the words hanging in her wake. 

If it hadn't been for her enhanced hearing she would have missed it but just as the door closed behind her, Stark sighed heavily and whispered to Romanov in a low voice. 

‘You think we should tell her?’ 

‘Give her some more time, she needs to be ready when it comes.’ 

**Drabble 2 - Flight of the Valkyrie**

_ There was an unearthly silence. The world slowed down, frame by frame as if the projector was slowing down the movie. Purple clouds boiled, erupting with spitting bolts of lighting across a torn sky. _

_ She clawed at the empty air, her eyes wild with fear. Emptiness, empty space- a vast expanse of air blasting past his ears- _

**_NO!_ **

_ Desperately he reached for her, his metal hand glinted as another bolt of lighting sparked through the sky.  _

_ Her mouth opened but no noise came out, torn away by the wind -- _

‘Vellet-!’ Bucky screamed, lunging forward as he made a wild grab in the dark. The world gave a strange heave and the bedroom floor hit him in the face. 

‘Fuck,’ Bucky hissed as he sat up gingerly to rub his head. 

He was laid out on the floor at the foot of his bed, blankets tangled around his legs and an egg sized lump swelling up on his forehead. Sweat made his hair stick to his face and at some point during the two hours of sleep he’d managed to grab, Bucky had ripped the neck of his shirt. 

With a sigh he heaved himself off the floor and padded to the mirror in the ensuite.

A pale figure, shiny with sweat and muscles trembling with adrenaline stared back at him. 

‘What you lookin’ at,’ Bucky snapped at his reflection, punching on the hot water. 

It had seemed so real, so vivid at the time but the nightmare was drifting away. Had there been lighting? Bucky asked himself as he poked at the lump on his head. At least it wasn’t bleeding, that would have been a nightmare to hide from Steve. 

**

‘Should you really be playing with that?’ Bucky called, standing at the foot of the plane, his words echoing around the hangar. 

It was a little after 3am and after losing the wrestling match with his blankets, Bucky figured he’d seek out his fellow nightowl. Following the sounds of clanging metal and muttered curses, he’d found Velletta hanging out of the belly of an aeroplane. 

Vellettaa swung out of a hole in the under belly of the plane and landed neatly on her feet. She wore a set of workman's overalls which were streaked with grease. Her reddish hair, which now touched her jawline, was tied back away from her face with a silk scarf. Sunburn made her thin face rosy, freckles dotted her nose. 

She shrugged at Bucky incredulously and gave the huge metal beast an appraising look. ‘I’m not playing. I am improving. Besides, Stark hasn’t used it in months.’ 

It was an Airbus A400M Atlas Transport that Stark had used a while ago for a test of some kind. It had sat underneath Vellettaa’s window, daring her, teasing her… she couldn’t resist. 

Bucky passed her a mug of hot milk. One of their unspoken midnight traditions. Whether or not they could sleep, they found themselves out of bed, in each other's company; Bucky would have a glass of apple juice, Vellettaa hot milk with a pinch of nutmeg. 

Most of the time they didn’t speak, they didn’t need to. The middle of the night, when the world was asleep and all they had were their memories: in that they had each other. 

Bucky ducked under one of the wings and peered up into the engine. ‘You’d have to be improving it, this thing is junk. You’ll never get it off the ground.’ 

‘I’ll get it further than that,’ Vellettaa scoffed, blowing on her drink. ‘By the time I’m done with, with...this Midgardian trash heap. This vessel will be able to do the Nova Run in 4, maybe 3 jumps. I’m retrofitting it with Asgardian tech.’ 

‘Space?’ Bucky asked excitedly, coming out from under the wing. 

‘Of course.’ Vellettaa replied matter-of-factly. 

As Bucky came to stand at her side, he thought about Thor’s decree forcing her to stay, Vellettaa’s distrust of Earth. This was her plan B, her escape route. He didn’t blame her. Bucky had his rucksack, hidden in a wall compartment in his room with a couple of sets of car keys and half a dozen passports, and now Velletta had her spaceship- or she would have once it was road worthy. 

Plus he’d be crazy to pass up the chance to work on a real life spaceship!

He rolled up his sleeves of his button down. ‘Where do you want me?’

Velletta cocked her eyebrow skeptically. ‘Do you know anything about Domarii ventilation systems causing blockages in the Hedron thrust gauge?’ 

‘I can twist bolts real tight and I have a metal arm. Just tell me what I need to be doing.’ 

Vellettaa sighing heavily. ‘Alright, just...just try not to blow yourself up.’ 

**

**-Drabbles 3- Back to Basics**

  
  


Jab, right, left duck. Jab, one two, right, duck - repeat. 

The sound of her punches landing against the reinforced punch bag was like a drumbeat. Drumbeat of war, drumbeat of her heart, the drums in the dark and the chanting, the chanting, the chanting...

Jab, right, left duck…

The gym was slowly growing dark. Nights were drawing in as winter descended over the Compound. Velletta didn’t mind, she had missed the cold. She’d thrown open the windows to freshen up the air but it didn’t change the burning shame that churned within her stomach. 

Frustration. Jab.

Anger. Jab-onetwo

It should have felt good. It should have felt familiar. The sweat on her brow and the ache in her hands should have been like old friends but nothing felt right about this. Every movement, every counterbalance she felt their absence. Her wings had been her best weapon, her entire body was designed around them and now...

‘Are you content spying on me from afar or would you like me to get you a chair?’ Velletta called dryly over her shoulder, combing her damp hair away from her face. 

Bucky stepped out of the shadows. ‘You’re not ready to be here,’ he said quietly as he wrapped his hands. 

‘This is the only place I belong.’ She retorted quickly, turning back to the punching bag. 

‘Yet you won’t let any of your partners near you.’ 

Velletta gritted her teeth, launching a kick at the bag. Of course he’d seen it, he’d be blind not to. For the last two days Velletta had been working her way through SHIELDS training staff, she’d even sparred with Captain Wilson .Ofcourse she had won but a trained eye like the Winter Soldier’s could tell she was holding back. 

‘Maybe they are out of my league.’ 

Bucky shrugged. ‘Or maybe you are not ready.’ 

Velletta huffed unhappily, drawing herself up aggressively. ‘Fury wants me back to fighting weight and-’ 

‘- And you’re gonna need to be able to grapple to do that.’ 

And there it was. So much for being a five hundred year old semi divine fearless warrior, Velletta thought bitterly. She’d won by not really fighting. She’d thrown them clear of the mat, kept them at a distance, attacked with kicks and lunges- never letting anyone close enough to land a hit. 

With one last punch to the bag, Velletta joined Bucky by the mats. He watched her silently, knowing that she was in inner turmoil but saying nothing. 

‘Do you trust me?’ Bucky asked, tying his hair in a messy bun at the nape of his neck. . 

‘I don’t distrust you,’ said Velletta. 

He huffed through his nose. ‘That's what I deserve, I guess.’ 

Velletta looked away, before kicking off her shoes and grabbing the boxing tape. ‘It's what we both deserve.’ 

Both fighters squared off on either side of the mat, slowly shaking out their limbs and cracking their knuckles. Velletta rolled her shoulders, they had begun to ache but she couldn’t afford to show such weakness. 

Bucky took a step forward onto the mat. ‘Roosevelt.’

Velletta cocked her eyebrow questioning. 

“Roosevelt” is our safe word if it gets too heated and we need to back down, you say “Roosevelt” and I’ll stop.’ 

Vellettaa scoffed and pulled her lips back over her teeth. ‘I never back down.’ 

Bucky grinned wolfishly. ‘You’ve never fought me before.’ 

Now this- this felt familiar. 

‘After I knock the stuffing out of you, remind me to tell you about the time I met King Roosevelt,’ Velletta commented lightly, reaching the middle of the mat and dropping down into a fighting stance. 

Bucky chuckled, ‘He wasn’t a kin-’ his words were cut short as a fist flew at his face.

***

**-Drabble 3- Aviation**

She felt awkward, out of place, edging into the male changing room after training but it was the only way she could get him alone.

Velletta wrinkled her nose, the smell of male sweat was the same on any planet you were on. Steam was still heavy in the air, lingering, making the fine hair at the nape of her neck curl into ringlets. 

She waited behind the open door of the locker, gently tapping her foot waiting for it to snap shut. 

‘Jesus H Christ!’ Wilson swore, clutching his heart. ‘You scared the crap out of me. Good thing I don’t have my gun on me.’ 

‘My apologies, Samuel.’ 

Sam chuckled as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. ‘Its fine but knock or something next time before you come into the men’s changing room. You could have got an eyeful.’

‘I am familiar with male anatomy.’ Velletta replied. 

‘Sure, you are.’ Sam shot her a wry grin. ‘ Something I can help you with?’ 

Velletta hesitated and then held out a notebook that she had been clutching to her chest. Silently, Sam took the leather notebook and let it fall open in his hands. 

‘These are designs,’ he breathed as he scanned the pages. 

‘Notes, adaptations for your wings. I have watched you fly, you are talented but the mechanics need work. They are a primitive Midgardian design.’ 

‘You got all this from just watching me train?’ He asked, his eyes wide as he scanned through her notes. 

Velletta shifted awkwardly. ‘I drew on my own experience as well. Born Valkyrie are expected to learn aerial combat techniques as well as aeronautics and physics.’ 

Wilson flicked through the pages. ‘I..I have never seen equations like these.’ 

‘No doubt you shall be a quick study-’ Velletta leaned forward and pointed one of her scribbles. ‘This demonstrates how you need to counterbalance against your downdraft in a left banking manoeuvre. It calculates how the …’

‘Inertial forces that are working against you.’ Wilson finished excitedly. 

Velletta nodded encouragingly. 

‘You can see all that in these equations?’ 

‘Yes, having wings is a privilege. We had to ensure that we put them to the best advantage.’ 

Wilson pulled out a piece of paper that had been lodged between the pages. ‘And these schematics?’ 

Velletta cleared her throat, she was particularly proud of these. For a few hours she’d let her mind wander back to her days in the sky. ‘You currently rely on thrusters,-’

‘To keep me in the air-’

‘Yes, because you favour heavy alloys but if you use a lightweight material…’ 

‘Such as? A midgardian wood from a sacred tree?’ Wilson asked sceptically. 

‘Spiders silk interlaced with cybernetic fibres that when a electric current is passed through it it becomes rigid and tough as iron. But yet, flexible,’ Velletta replied matter-of-factly. 

Wilson shook his head. ‘The wingspan would have to be bigger.’ 

‘Yes, roughly 8 or 9 metres-’ she nodded and turned over the page, which showed more sketches. ‘- but your banking speed would be greatly increased. I estimate speeds of 150 miles an hour.’ 

Samuel was silent for a moment, watching her face closely as she thumbed through the book in his hands. 

‘Do you miss them?’ He asked. 

‘I miss being worthy of them-’ Velletta hesitated a moment. ‘If I were worthy, I wouldn’t need to miss them.’ 

Samuel shook his head sadly. ‘You could always use mine, if you like. I keep a spare pack for emergencies.’ 

‘Thankyou, Samuel, truly. I know you mean well but…’

Maybe now she understood how Bucky felt, having his arm replaced with a poor imitation of his own. Anything else would feel like a lie. 

‘-flying is a singular joy, one which you must earn and I have lost that privilege. I must win it back.’ She said this with finality but for some reason she didn’t feel sad or angry, she felt strangely empty as if the loss of her wings had left a hole inside of her. 

‘For what it is worth, I know Thor is your Prince and all but, I think he’s full of shit. I’ve never met anyone more worthy than you.’ 

Velletta nodded thankfully and turned to leave. ‘I hope to fly with you someday, Son of Will.’ 

‘You want to be my wingman?’ Sam chuckled, chucking a towel in his rucksack. 

Wingman...was this a Midgardian joke that she didn’t understand. 

**-Drabbles 5- Sorcerer of Ox**

‘What are you watching?’ Bucky asked in a too loud voice, bursting into the living room, turning on all the lights and disrupting the cozy set up that Velletta had created. . 

‘The Sorcerer of Ox, if you must know!’ Velletta replied testily from underneath her mound of pillows. ‘Morgan left it out for me to watch.’ 

‘You mean the Wizard of Oz?’ Bucky asked, trying not to laugh as he walked to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water. 

Velletta peaked over the back of the sofa. ‘You are familiar with it?’ 

‘Yeah, you could say that,’ Bucky replied cockily, hopping over the back of the sofa and settling down in the other corner. 

It was one of the few movies he remembered. He’d first seen it when he was stationed with the Howling Commandos somewhere in Poland. They sat in Jeeps or found the softest patch of grass, while the film was projected onto a bedsheet. 

The next time he saw it was in the hotel room of a target. It played in the background while the Winter Soldier squeezed the life from the target's body. 

They sat in companionable silence as munchkins and witches danced around the screen. Whoever had made this play had obviously never met a real witch because they were a lot nicer in reality and didn’t wear pointy hats, Vellettaa thought, tucking her knees underneath her and hugging a pillow to her chest. Without a word, Bucky threw a blanket over to her side of the sofa. She nodded thanks and handed him a bowl of mixed snacks. 

Bucky could tell she had made it herself because there were a strange mix of coconut chips, pretzels and grapes. She was still figuring out Midgardian food. Although he was no judge, he was still trying to get his head around Poptarts. 

‘Pick a character..’ 

Velletta frowned at him. 

‘It's something that Stevie and me used to do when we’d sneak into a movie. You pick a character to be,’ Bucky said, handing back the snacks. ‘It's just a game,’ he reassured her. 

Velletta thought for a moment, squinting at the screen. ‘I pick the dog.’ 

‘The dog!’ Bucky spluttered, choking on a pretzel. ‘You mean Toto? That's who you pick as a character?’ 

She nodded emphatically. ‘He is the bravest of the all; he is loyal and fearless. Why are you laughing at me?! You said it was a game.’ Velletta threw a pillow at him. ‘Which player are you then?’

He caught the pillow deftly and tucked it under his head, reclining into the sofa. ‘Definitely the flying monkey.’ 

Velletta stared at the tv screen, then at Bucky and then back at the TV before concluding- ‘I see the resemblance but no, I disagree.’ 

‘You’re an expert on earth culture now?’ 

‘I offer an outsiders’ opinion,’ Velletta shrugged,' You are not a flying monkey, you are Dorothy.’ Vellettaa seemed proud of herself for this canny observation. 

‘Great.’ Bucky deadpanned. ‘Please don’t let Wilson know you said that.’ 

Velletta seemed to completely ignore this. ‘The Captain would say that I’m the Tin Man and you’re the Scarecrow.’ 

Bucky huffed. ‘Heart and brains weren’t important to our training….Why Dorothy?’ 

‘Because there is no place like home..’ Velletta let her words sink in before a small, cocky smile sprung up on her face. ‘And I bet you would look most fetching in a dress.’ 

**Drabble 6 - Automobiles are evil**

‘Do you miss it?’ Bucky asked as he passed her the beer bottle. ‘Asgard, I mean?’ 

They sat with their legs dangling off the wing of the Kite. The aeroplane might not be space worthy yet but it was certainly beginning to look the part. The old gun metal exterior had been replaced with a brilliant scarlet and white, sonic pulse engines replaced the old propellers and they had broadened the wingspan for extra stability. 

They had the hangar door open and watched as the first flakes of winter snow flit through the searchlights. 

Velletta accepted the bottle. ‘Truthfully, I never really spent much time there.’ She took a deep gulp. 

The alcohol wouldn’t affect her but she had to admit that it tasted better than the mead made in the Conclave. 

Bucky frowned, ‘But I thought it was you home?’ 

‘The Conclave where the Valkyrie live and train is high up in the mountains outside of the city limits. It is pitilessly cold and we have six months of non-stop darkness. It can be brutal, it needs to be, a Valkyrie must be ready for anything, ’ Velletta hesitated, smiling sadly. ‘I miss my sisters more than anything.’

A strange look passed over Bucky’s face and Velletta saw that his aura burned bright for a moment before turning cold. ‘Do you have many sisters?’ 

She took a swig of beer. ‘Twenty when I was last there.’ 

Bucky frowned again, his brow crinkling slightly. 

Velletta huffed lightly and had the strange urge to smooth the crinkle away with her thumb. 

‘All Valkyrie are sisters, some of us may be related but we are either handed over or born from a Valkyrie bloodline-’ Velletta looked out into the snowy night. It all felt so long ago. ‘When we got older we would sneak into the city to watch plays or take part in the summer celebrations. I still have the scars from when House Mother Hild caught me trying to climb out my window-’ she looked up suddenly as if she had surprised herself. ‘It all seems...It must seem very small to you.’ 

Bucky cocked his head, snapping off the cap off another bottle with his metal hand. 

‘I mean, you have had a big life. Done things. Seen things….lived-’ 

Why was she still talking?! Whenever she was alone with Bucky she couldn’t seem to keep her mouth shut. She spoke more in their midnight conversations than she would normally have in a week.

‘Looking back on my days, I… I think I was a prisoner long before Decimation.’ 

Bucky watched her silently for a moment as she stubbornly kept her eyes fixed on the falling snow. Then suddenly, he got to his feet and offered her his hand. 

‘Do wanna do somethin’ crazy?’

**

‘This vehicle is dangerous,’ Vellettaa grumbled as the gears grinded and whined as she tried to first second gear. 

Bucky tried to act cool but he gripped the passenger seat like a cat on a tin roof. Maybe this hadn’t been his best idea. ‘I think it's just your driving.’

‘I blame the teacher-’ Velletta replied hastily as she jerked the wheel. The roads were quiet for 3am but Velletta seemed to have a knack for hitting every curb and pothole in sight. 

‘Nothin wrong with my teaching. _ Easy! _ \- fine, let's blame Wilson’s car then.’ 

Velletta’s head snapped towards Bucky. ‘You didn’t say this was Wilson’s car?! Did you steal this-’

‘Technically, you stole his car but he seems to like you and we’ll be back before he realises we took it out,’ Bucky grinned wolfishly before adding innocently. ‘Scout’s honour.’ 

_ Since when were you ever a Scout?! _ A voice sounding a lot like Steve’s crowed in the back of his head. 

The engine complained again as Velletta went for third gear. They accelerated wildly. ‘I shall teach you to fly one day and then-’ she laughed darkly, ‘then the stocking shall be on the other foot!’ 

‘Shoe! The  _ shoe _ shall be on the other foot-’ Bucky grabbed the wheel wildly and jerked it to the right but it was too late, they launched forward over the dashboard as they crashed into a lamppost. 

They stared at each other in horror as a cloud of smoke rose from the bonnet of the car and a hub cap rolled off into the distance. 

‘We could tell Wilson it was stolen.’ 

‘Good thinkin’,’ 

**Drabbles 7- Hit the mats**

They circled each other like predators. The Winter soldier was in his element. He studied everything about her; the way her short hair was braided intricately away from her face, the way she’d interlaced the boxing tape over her knuckles, even the way she moved was interesting- different from any style he’d seen before. 

From some distant memory Winter recalled seeing a cobra rising from a basket at the beckoned call of its master. It revealed a pair of ivory fangs, they glinted with venom and it danced to its master’s song and then, when the man had turned to pick up coins off the street, the cobra struck; once, twice, three times- throat, eyes and the heart for good measure. 

Velletta fought like that- precise, dangerously quick and lethal. 

She didn’t blink as she stepped around the edge of the mat. ‘I’m not weak.’

‘I know.’ Their movements were almost a dance, she kept low, her feet light- Bucky kept his fists raised, bare chest hitching slightly and his muscles coiled for another attack. 

‘Then why aren’t you landing any punches?’ She flashed a set of sharp teeth. 

**_‘The insolence!_ ** _ ’  _ The Winter Soldier growled but he wasn’t angry, in fact Bucky knew that the deep rumble coming from his chest that he loved the challenge. 

_ Steady. She is trying to draw us out.  _

Bucky pretended to tighten his glove, his eyes never leaving her form. ‘I’m starting slow, we’ll work our way up.’ 

Velletta let out a low, dark chuckle. ‘Only  _ if _ I choose to spar with you again.’ 

‘You have done every day for two months,’ Bucky replied cockily. 

Velletta dropped her hands slightly and shrugged. ‘I will tire of you soon.’ 

‘We both know I’m the only one you want, Angel.’

Bucky didn’t know where it had come from. For a second it felt so familiar and the right thing to say but as Velletta drew up short and her mouth fell open slightly- The Winter Soldier saw his opening and struck. 

Hands darted out, upward block, swipe leg- there was a whirl of limbs and a whoosh of air as Velletta hit the mat with the force of a freight train. 

A second passed and then another. Bucky stood panting slightly as Velletta glared up angrily at him from the mat. A normal person would have rushed forward and asked her if she was okay, a normal person wouldn’t have launched her nearly two feet in the air in order to get a damn win! 

**_“We won!”_ **

_ Not fairly! _

Instead Bucky stuck out his flesh hand. Velletta hesitated a moment before wrapping her strong fingers around his wrist.

A spike of adrenaline.

Velletta hauled him forward, planting her feet on his chest, bringing him crashing down beside her. 

They lay there, both panting, both riddled with pain but neither of them made a move to get up.

  
  


**Drabbles 8 - Jokes**

Mugs held the corner of the schematics flat on the kitchen table. Pretzels and bagel crumbs covered the blue lined paper. Impatiently Bucky brushed them away with his hand as he pointed again at the drawing. 

‘But if you move this ventilation pipe over to this quadrant here-’ he jabbed his pen on the paper. ‘You can get an extra square foot of room in the Captain's cabin.’ 

Why was it so easy to talk to Velletta? They sat in the belly of the Kite, panels and wiring hung down around them as they peered at the blue prints. Hours had passed since they had begun batting around ideas, the conversation seemed to flow with Velletta. Steve was Bucky’s best friend but Velletta felt different somehow to Natasha or Sam...it felt simple. 

‘I don’t not need more room. A cot is generous enough,’ Velletta replied absently, squinting at the specs. 

‘Guess it's better than a blanket on the floor.’ he commented wryly. 

‘You got a blanket- lucky you.’ Velletta replied, tossing a pretzel into her mouth. 

‘I was based in Siberia, without a blanket my balls would have frozen off,’ Bucky stated matter of factly. 

‘Oh no, whatever would womankind do now?’ Vellettaa retorted dryly. 

All Bucky could do was blink at her for a moment. ‘Was that a joke? Are you telling jokes now, Angel?’

A small shy smile pulled over Vellettaa’s face. ‘Did I do it right?’ 

‘You...you did good.’ 

Who knew she was such a dork? Bucky thought as he turned back to the blue prints. 

**DRABBLES 8- Questions**

‘Out for a walk?’ Captain Rogers called as he rounded a turn in the path.

Rogers said things like this a lot. “Eating oatmeal?” “It's raining,”- Bucky had assured her that he was trying to be friendly and not just stating the obvious. 

There was a mountain path that encircled the Compound. It had rivers and trees and in the low light of winter, Vellettaa found a quiet sanctuary on its gravel path. 

‘Yes, I enjoy the quiet.’ 

‘Oh,-’ Rogers’ face fell and he skidded a little on the gravel. ‘- then I shall leave you to it.’ 

When would she get used to Midgardian customs and niceties! 

‘No, I meant no offence. You, Captain, are very quiet. I was referring more to Stark and Wilson,’ Velletta said apologetically. 

The Captain chuckled. ‘Stark does like the sound of his own voice.’

‘Very much so,’ Vellettaa acknowledged wryly. 

The Captain gestured up the path and they began to walk side by side in companionable silence. Most of the leaves had fallen by now and the path was slippy in places with patches of ice. 

‘How are you settling in? Do you need anything?’Captain Rogers asked kindly 

Velletta wasn’t surprised by his question, not at all- Captain Rogers was one of the more earnest people she had ever met. 

She frowned. ‘People keep dropping things off in my room. Furniture, clothing - I am not used to being waited on.’ 

Rogers chuckled lightly. ‘We’re trying to make you feel at home.’ 

‘But this is not my home, Captain Rogers,’ Velletta replied abruptly. 

‘Not a home then-,’ Rogers hesitated, struggling to find the right words, ‘but we want you to feel comfortable.’ 

‘Why?’ Velletta asked, uneasily. 

He cocked his eyebrow. ‘You can tell by my aura if I lie, can’t you?’

It was not that simple. It depended if the person believed their lie or not. But Captain Rogers didn't need to know that. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘We want to look after you.’ 

Vellettaa wrinkled her nose. 

He chuckled again, sticking his hands in his pockets as they rounded a corner and went deeper into the woods. ‘We want to be your friends.’ 

‘Why?!’ She asked with genuine surprise. 

‘Is that such a foriegn concept?’ He asked with mild disbelief. 

‘Not at all!’ Velletta began with difficulty. ‘It is just that Midgardian customs are very different from our own.’ 

‘Thor seems to manage.’ 

‘The Prince has been travelling the galaxy since he was a child. He learnt diplomacy at the Allfather’s knee. He could make friends in a Zuckass Monastery of Death.’ Velletta chuckled to herself. ‘Valkyries are not afforded such an education.’ 

‘Is there something that we can do-’ 

‘No, please! Small gifts are fine now that I understand their purpose.’ 

Captain Rogers was silent for a time. ‘You thought you would have to be asked to pay for them in some way.’ 

Vellettaa didn’t acknowledge him. She didn’t need to, the muscle jumping in her jaw was enough confirmation. 

Rogers stared off into the forest, his voice sounded distant and sad. ‘Bucky felt the same at first. He couldn’t understand why we could just give him his own room, his own bed. I found out that he was hoarding food in case we took it all away from him.’ 

Velletta turned to him, snapping angrily. ‘Can you really blame us? We have learnt that this is the only way to survive.’ 

‘No one blames you,’ Captain Rogers said quietly, his brilliant blue eyes stared at her sadly. 

They continued silently down the path. Dead leaves crunching under foot and mist rising into the crisp air. 

‘Captain Rogers…’ Velletta began. 

‘Call me Steve, please.’ 

‘Captain Steve, I would not think you would try and be humorous if I asked you a question. Wilson often makes light when I ask him things.’ 

‘I’ll be straight with you.’ Steve shrugged. 

‘What is an angel ?’ 

‘An angel?’ Steve parroted in surprise. 

‘Yes, an angel. You call  Jorð bifask \- Angel Fire and Bucky calls me an Angel sometimes-’

Steve’s eyebrows shot towards his hairline as if to say  _ “does he now.” _

Velletta continued to struggle as they walked. ‘I think it is a term of endearment but I am unsure of the definition. I have tried using your Giggle-’

‘Google-’ 

‘But the findings are very confusing.’ 

Steve cleared his throat a little uncomfortably. ‘Well, Angels factor into most of Earth’s religions in some form or another. They are immensely powerful beings who do God's bidding on Earth but they also perform miracles and help people. They often have wings which is how I guess you earned the nickname.’ 

‘So, they are good?’ Velletta asked with surprise. 

Steve nodded. ‘Generally, I would say so.’

She looked up into the tree canopy. ‘Then maybe it is not so bad to be called an Angel.’ 

‘No, it is not.’ Steve smiled broadly. 

Velletta stopped suddenly and gave Steve a small bow. ‘Captain Steve, I have enjoyed your company. I shall send you a small gift as a sign of my friendship.’ 

‘That's not how...you don’t...How about we walk together tomorrow? Same time and place?’ 

Velletta nodded and continued down the path amongst the trees, leaving Steve looking bemused but grinning to himself. 

**Drabbles 10- Lethal**

‘You’re pulling your punches!’ Velletta growled angrily as Bucky once again danced away from her grip. 

‘I aint trying to kill you,’He grinned- he knew that grinning would make her even madder than she already was. 

‘Like a Midgardian ever could!’ Velletta snapped, pulling her lips back over her teeth. 

‘You’re all talk,’ Bucky smirked again. 

With a snarl Vellettaa launched a furious attack. She tried again, and again, and again. Each time Bucky would deflect, toss her aside, pin her against the wall, knock back Velletta’s attacks as her frustration and anger grew. 

They had been sparring long enough for a small crowd to have surrounded them. In the corner of his eye Bucky saw Sam passing money to Clint as the two whispered together excitedly. If there were normal their ears would be ringing, noses bleeding, ribs cracked, fingers broken - too exhausted to move. 

And yet neither of them were normal, and neither of them would back down. 

  
  


Velletta sucked in a shaky breath, wiping a smear of blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Have I not proven myself to be a woman of action? Or is that why you are holding back, you fear fighting me directly?’ 

Bucky shook his head, ‘You’re trying to get yourself killed.’ 

They both knew that this had gone on too long. They both knew that the sparring match had ended hours ago and now, all they felt was rawness and frustration and anger. 

‘I am trying to live,’ Vellettaa hissed, throwing a series of strikes toward Bucky’s legs. 

Deftly Bucky caught her wrists and twisted them behind the back of her head. She threw her weight and tried to kick him away but Bucky kept his body tucked in close to her back. 

‘You can live without killing.’ He spoke quietly into her ear, barely moving his lips, so that no one would hear. 

For a fraction of a second she hesitated and then Velletta ground out through her teeth, ‘Killing is healthy competition. Mercy is disrespect!’’ 

The world tilted, spinning before his eyes as the air was punched out of his lungs. Quicker than a bolt of lightning, Vellettaa twisted out of his grip and planted both feet on his chest.

The next thing Bucky knew Sam was helping him pull his body out of the drywall on the other side of the gym. 

At least Vellettaa had the decency to look a little sheepish as he shook plaster dust out of his hair. 

‘I keep forgetting you’re an alien,’ Bucky smiled as he coughed up a lump of mortar. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment, kudos and subscribe x


	10. Phase 1: Chapter 10- Living pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here you go, part two! Stay tuned for more drabbles on the way. 
> 
> \- Ghosts of Christmas Past  
> \- Snow  
> \- Santa Claws  
> \- Being Human  
> \- Gearing up  
> \- Valentine's Day  
> \- Fight like a girl   
> \- Black Tom   
> \- Earth Customs

**Drabbles 11 - Ghosts of Christmas Past**

‘And then when the final bell strikes-,’ Velletta shifted excitedly in her seat at the dining room table. She couldn’t keep her hands still, flicking through the pages and tracing the lines across the cover. 

Steve smiled. ‘So you enjoyed it then?’ 

Velletta nodded shyly, ‘I am pleasantly surprised. From what you have recommended, Steve, Midgardian literature has surpassed my expectations.’ 

‘I found it really useful when I first woke up-,’ Steve tossed her a book from the ever growing pile he recommended to her, ‘Books speak in a language that we can all understand.’ 

‘Good Mornin’ ladies!’ Sam called happily as he barged through the kitchen door with Bucky trailing behind. 

Velletta doubted that Sam knew that they were the ones that stole his car, but she wasn’t going to run that risk. 

Pointedly she addressed Steve, ‘If you are interested, the laxdaela saga is based on a traditional Asgardian story.’ 

Steve smirked. ‘Only if you start Treasure Island next.’ 

Bucky slumped heavily at the end of the table, shooting Velletta a meaningful look as Sam took the seat next to her. 

‘Are you a fan of books as well Bucky?’ Velletta asked, trying to hide her grin. 

Steve scoffed. ‘Comics, maybe.’

Bucky ignored Steve and leaned across the table to Velletta. ‘I preferred comics because I was too busy dating women and having a social life.’ 

Steve’s face turned into a sweaty beetroot and he hid his face behind the book. 

**Drabbles 12 - Snow**

Snow drifted through the dark sky , blotting out the low sun and falling in thick layers across the grassy compound. 

Velletta pulled her jumper higher on her neck. It was not as cold as the Conclave on Asgard. Up in the mountain temple blizzards could last up to two months, pilling snow up to the roof tops. They would live mostly underground in deep underground catacombs like burrowing animals. 

In many ways, Earth still felt strange to Velletta. Only certain people were allowed to carry weapons and even then they had to be hidden under a coat, people fretted over characters in ‘shows’ like they were close friends, not to mention how long they stayed glued to their little rectangles. 

Still with the snow, the smell of the burning logs and the sound of friendly laughter it felt as much like home as any place.

‘Oh!’ Steve choked on a small spiced pie as a new song played through the little white box. 

‘ I know this one, it's Deck the Hall.’ 

‘Everyone in the western hemisphere knows this song,’ Sam smiled, putting another marshmallow on his skewer. 

After a blizzard overnight had closed the roads leading to the Compound and with none of the staff able to get in, they had lounged about for most of the day, drawing all the furniture in the living room and crowding close to the fire place.Sam and Natasha had taken it upon themselves to try and cook everything in the kitchen on a stick. 

Steve shushed Sam impatiently and leaned over the back of his armchair. ‘Buck, do you remember the Harrelson’s Christmas party in 36’. We snuck in…’ 

Bucky merely smiled slowly as his friend recounted a tale of misbegotten youth and booze. Steve was happy. He didn’t want to dampen the mood by admitting that he didn’t remember the party or that he didn’t even recognise the song. 

‘You waltzed with Dotty McKenzie-’ 

‘The Winter Soldier waltzed!’ Natasha barked with laughter, her feet bouncing over the arm of the sofa as she hooted. 

‘Oh,’ Velletta said wryly from her mound of cushions piled up on the floor, ‘so you are a kuensami.’ 

‘Dare I ask?’ Bucky asked, the corner of his mouth curling slightly. 

‘You’re a skirt chaser!’ Velletta teased, ‘But what is a waltz? It sounds indecent,’ Velletta asked with interest. 

The gasp of horror that escaped Steve meant that it must be important. Before she knew it, Captain America ordered her on her feet, propped her arms up like a scarecrow and began to, rather bossily, direct her in the sacred art of the waltz.

The snow continued to fall. Bucky felt content, warm in his chest as he watched his two friends awkwardly step around each other. For someone so fearsome in battle, Velletta looked like a doll being tossed about in the arms of a bear. 

It was strange to think of the boy that Steve had been in Brooklyn; asthma riddled, scruffy lookin’, punk who couldn’t keep his nose clean for two seconds. Maybe he was still the same on the inside but he was Captain America now, and he damn well looked the part. Even Velletta had changed in the past six months. Bucky was glad that the Asgardians were on their allies' cause from the half dead skeleton they’d saved from Decimation, Velletta had morphed into an absolute force of nature. The only reason he still managed to beat her in the training ring was because he knew how to get under her skin. 

He heard Sam chuckle in his ear, as he draped himself over the back of the chair. ‘Ah, don’t think I don’t see it.’ 

Bucky cocked his eyebrow. 

Sam grinned like a cat who's got the cream. ‘You haven't taken your eyes off her all night. You’ve got the hots for Velletta.’ Wilson nudged his arm. 

Bucky rolled his eyes, ‘We have history, Wilson, nothing more.’ 

‘Sure, sure you have. All I’m saying in…’

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose, ‘Well, don’t just say-’

‘- _ All _ I’m saying is that the Cap doesn’t choose just anyone to dance with.’ 

Bucky stopped himself as long as he could. Quickly glancing over his shoulder at Velletta had somehow managed to dip Steve, Bucky spun back to Sam. ‘Meaning?’

Sam demurely perched his chin in his hand. ‘Meaning if you don’t make a move soon, he might.’ 

Bucky recoiled slightly, frowning. ‘Steve likes Velletta?’ 

‘Hey, you’ve known him longer than me but I know this-.’ Sam ticked each fact off his fingers. 

‘He likes tough women, straight talking, no nonsense and he likes to sweep them off their feet on his white charger-,’ with a secretive glance towards the others, Sam lowered his voice, ‘-Velletta has that in spades and that girl needs saving even if she doesn't realise it.’ 

Bucky didn’t reply as Steve twirled Velletta in his arms, bracing his hands on her waist as they both fumbled, tripping over each other's feet. 

_ Steve likes Velletta _ … The words echoed around in Buckys’s head as if they had been said in an alien language.  _ No, thats not right, that can’t be righ _ t, Bucky wanted to blurt out stupidly. Steve is Steve and Velletta is Velletta, the two of them...No, they weren’t ‘the two of them’, they were just… 

Steve was his friend. His best friend, his family. When he looked at Steve, for a split second he thought he saw himself through Steve’s eyes; he thought he could be good, could be innocent, could get better. With Steve as his friend Bucky could still be the young boy from Brooklyn who was too busy playing baseball on the banks of the East River to ever think about going to war. 

And then there was Velletta. There was always Velletta. 

Something small and gnarly began to make his stomach churn. 

From deep within him the Winter Soldier snarled, **“He cannot take her!”**

**_She was never ours to keep._ **

Bucky forced his head back round to Sam and forced a mechanical smirk onto his face. ‘Then Lord have mercy on his soul cause he’s gonna need it.’ 

‘This-’ Velletta blurted out loudly as the song changed, ‘-this reminds me of a  Krukedans reel,’ Velletta said, listening intently as she slowly began to sway to the music. 

‘Dare I ask?’ Steve winced. 

‘It is quite easy,’ Velletta said matter-of-factly, adjusting her grip on Steve’s hand and wrapping her arm around his waist. ‘Don’t worry I shall lead.’

Sam had to stuff a pillow over his face to hide his giggles as Steve looked positively panicked. ‘I think that's what he is afraid of.’ 

  * **Drabble 12- Santa Claws**



The team had long since gone to bed and it had been officially Christmas Day for an hour. A cup of eggnog sat untouched at Velletta’s feet as once again she frowned at a cartoon of Frosty the snowman while Bucky drank from the neck of a whiskey bottle. Natasha and Sam had a bad fetish for crappy, kitsch, nonsensical, sickly-diabetes- sweet Christmas movies and they had left out a box of them for Velletta’s ‘homework’.The lights on Velletta’s tacky Christmas jumper flashed, Clint had given her it after telling her it was the sacred law to wear it for the holiday. 

‘So -’ Velletta began for what felt like the hundredth time that night. ‘- Christmas is a festival about celebrating winter-,’ 

‘Yes,’ Bucky sighed, taking another swig from the bottle. The whiskey burned pleasantly but he couldn’t get drunk- he’d give it a hell of a go though. 

He had no excuse in the world to be miserable. He was a free man, he had a job- kindof, he had a hell of a lot more now than he did a year ago, and yet why could he not stop that angry little monster from eating his insides. Bucky drained the bottle and reached for another. 

‘-a you wage war on Turkey and drink eggs.’ 

Bucky sighed heavily but, try as he might, he couldn’t stop himself from grinning. ‘Listen, all this..this-’ Bucky gestured vaguely at the gaudy decorations, dvds, cookies that were scattered over the floor. ‘-this ain’t Christmas. Christmas is about family…’

The fire reflected in Velletta’s wide eyes as she stared at him eagerly listening. 

Bucky hesitated, struggling to find the right words. ‘Christmas is about family and maybe Santa Klaus leaving you a gift if you’re lucky...Steve will tell you better than I can, I can’t remember the last Christmas I actually had.’

  
  


Velletta’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head. ‘Santa-’ she made big C shapes with her hands. 

Bucky inhaled whiskey through his nose. Eyes streaming, gasping for breath between chuckles and coughing, Bucky choked out, ‘Santa Klaus  _ not _ claws!...Father Christmas, St Nicholas, big fat red guy...rides about in a sleigh once a year.’ 

‘St Nicholas-’ she said thoughtful for a moment before sniffing at her mug of eggnog- making a face and flipping it absently into the fireplace where it made a small explosion. ‘And he gives out gifts...to everyone?’ 

Bucky opened his mouth and then promptly closed it again, before nodding. Something small within him wanted Velletta to feel something again. He had a faint memory of Christmas mornings, hands seeking blindly in the dark for a stocking that had been left at the end of his bed.The unbridled excitement, anticipation, ...and hope. He wanted her to be hopeful. 

‘He sounds like a good man.’Velletta looked away thoughtfully, chewing the cuff of her tacky jumper. ‘He gives joy to people, and often people need that in their lives.’ 

** 

‘Okay, Nat, you can dish out the presents,’ Sam ordered as he theoretically threw himself down onto the sofa. 

‘I can’t, I’m too fat!’ Natasha protested. 

Christmas dinner wasn’t a Asgardian feast but Velletta’s jeans were starting to feel uncomfortably tight. She might not be able to finish a whole boar’s leg anymore but she had surprised everyone by going back for a third helping of mashed potatoes. 

‘I’ll play mother-,’ Vision floated over the mountain of brightly wrapped gifts that had appeared overnight. The robot plucked a lumpy, brown package from the top of the pile and peered at the tag. ‘Velletta first, it would seem.’ 

It looked like someone had wrapped a giant chicken leg in kitchen roll and newspaper. 

Velletta beamed down at the package that now lay in her lap. ‘He actually came…’ 

‘Who’s it from, Vel?’ Sam asked with interest as he tried to grab a parcel from the floor without moving from the sofa. 

‘St Nicholas, of course,’ Velletta said shortly as she began to tear through the wrapping. 

‘No, seriously, who’s it from?’

Velatta held up the scrap of newspaper that acted as a label where it was clearly written- “To Velletta, From St Nick.”

She didn’t notice the stunned silence, Velletta was too busy tearing the paper to even notice Steve slightly lean back in his armchair and murmur in Bucky’s ear in an amused voice. 

‘Why is Velletta unwrapping my baseball bat?’ 

Bucky had to hide his grin behind his hand as turned to Steve and mouthed “SHORT NOTICE.”

  
  
  


  * **Drabble 13-Being human**



‘Stop fighting like a human,’ Velletta snapped as once again Bucky danced away from her jab. 

For someone so big, Bucky was fast and nimble. He darted and feinted, landed hits with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer and then dodged like a water dancer. He had a grace to his movements that Velletta couldn’t help but admire...and damn the fates, did it make her mad!

‘What else am I supposed to fight like?’ Bucky retorted, bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

Her lips pulled back over her teeth. ‘Fight like what you are.’ 

‘What am I then?’ Bucky goaded, enjoying how easy it had become to wind her up. 

‘Can a human do this?’ Velletta released a flurry of movement, kicks, swipes, punches- a dozen in a matter of seconds, Bucky managed to avoid them all. ‘ Can a human knock a hole in concrete or catch this-’ vaulting over a bench, Velletta hoisted a huge barbell over her head and hurled it at Bucky. 

He caught it with his metal hand and tossed it to the side where it left a gaping hole in the floor. ‘You got a point?’

‘You fight like you are still human-,’ Velletta brushed a bead of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘You are a fool.’ 

‘Thanks for the pep talk.’ He loosened his shoulders and raised his fists in front of his face. 

They squared off, circling each other; bodies low, neither of them blinking. 

‘You fight like a human because you underestimate yourself, you hold on to your past.’ 

‘They turned me into a machine,’ Bucky growled through his teeth. 

Velletta feinted, aimed a punch left but moved right, gaining ground. ‘Then stop fighting with one hand tied behind your back,’ 

Bucky pivoted, blocked her two handed strike and sent her sprawling with a kick to the hip. ‘And what about you then?’

Velletta snapped round and impatiently her hair out of her face. ‘The graves of Asgard’s enemies are littered with people who underestimated me,’ Velletta said as once again she raised her fists and readied herself. 

“ **She never backs down** ,” The Winter Soldier said approvingly. 

_ She’s a pain in the ass! _

‘ _ Ah _ -,’ Bucky let his hands drop and reached for a towel to tab his face, ‘you’re not that scary, Angel, you talk big but under that hard exterior you’re as soft as Captain Stayp...’ 

Velletta sucked in a steadying breath, closing her eyes, she centred herself a moment before striking! A two handed punch that seemed to sink right into Bucky’s stomach. 

It was the same feeling you get when you miss a step in the dark, his stomach flipped, he had the sensation of falling and then...lightness, his entire body suddenly felt like he’d sucked in a lung full of helium. 

Velletta watched him with a strange look, with sadness but also as if she was seeing him for the first time. 

Reflexively, he went to pat down his unruly hair- his hand went straight through his face!

‘I feel strange,’ he managed to choke out but as looked down at himself. He was so far from strange he was in another galaxy to what we knew to be strange!

For starters he could see through himself, his arms and legs looked eerily translucent. That was not normal. He was also hovering several feet off the floor looking down at his own body as Velletta casually propped it up against a rowing machine.. ‘I’m a ghost!’

‘You do look different.’ Velletta said, eyeing his spectral form as she slowly stretched out her muscles. 

And that's when Bucky caught a glimpse of himself in the gym’s mirror. If he wasn’t already, he would have turned white as a ghost. Hovering before was the image of James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant of the 501st, mint condition and fresh out of the box. It was as if a huge chain had been lifted from his shoulders, he even looked free. His hair, his uniform, even his shoes looked crisp as if he was about to step out with Steve for a night on the town. 

He opened and closed his left hand. A lump rose in his throat. 

‘What is this?’ his voice sounded harsh, it had a hard edge. 

‘This is your true self. How you see your inner being,’ Velletta explained, her voice sounded surprisingly gentle. 'Valkyries guide warriors to the afterlife, remember.'

‘Am I dead?’ His voice was quiet and sounded strangely hopeful.

‘Death is a concept which is too complicated for humans to understand-’ Bucky made an impatient noise. ‘ The short answer is no.’

‘But you could-’ his eyes search hers, wide and silent. 

_You fool, Velletta. Look what your vanity has caused!_ She hissed in her head. 

‘I could move you on but it is not your time.’ With a movement like pulling on a rope, Velletta dragged Bucky back into his body. 

There was a whoosh of air and hacking coughs, Bucky gasped and his knees trembled as he pulled himself to his feet. ‘If you could do that all this time, why not do it in a fight?’ 

‘It takes significant effort to force a soul out before its time. I would never use this power in a fight, even if it meant saving my own life.’ 

Now that he had air in his lungs and wasn’t translucent anymore, Bucky noticed Velletta sagged against a running machine, swaying slightly on her feet. Grimly he turned away and gave her a moment to lower herself to the ground. 

Bucky was quiet for some time, perched on a bench, cycling through all the memories that he wished he didn't have, wondering how he got to this moment, before blurting out. ‘Were you ever tempted?’ 

Velletta grimaced and pinched the bridge of her nose as if a headache had just sprung up. ‘Every waking moment.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘...doesn’t matter.’ She shrugged. 

‘Of course it matters.’ 

‘Why didn’t you?’ Velletta retorted quickly. 

‘I didn’t own my life.’ 

They stared at each other. Sitting on opposite sides of the gym, 8 metres apart- it could have been an ocean or it could have been a spec of dust- their grief, courage, pain … what they had been through together connected them. 

‘I ...didn’t want to leave you alone,’ murmured Velletta, barely loud enough for Bucky to hear. 

But as he opened his mouth to respond, a gang of engineers burst through the doors chattering and yawning happily. 

Time had got away from them and the spell was broken. 

  
  


  * **Drabble 14- Gearing up**



The alarm blared and the call had gone up. There was a wild flurry of movement around the locker room as the team threw on their gear and stuck in their comms. 

Velletta lurked in the corner of the gym, trying to be useful by handing out mags and batteries, testing equipment but her mind wasn’t on the task. She moved without thinking, her eyes flicking towards the doorway every few seconds. 

As the hem of Clint’s coat disappeared into the hangar bay, Velletta sprang. 

She snapped the locker door shut, ‘I’m warning you, if…’ she growled in a low, dangerous voice. 

‘You’re warning me?’ Bucky smirked as he tugged on his protective glove.

Velletta jabbed her finger, ‘Yes, that's right, Bucky, I am warning you, if you get yourself killed I will…’

‘You’ll what?’ he asked expectantly, taking a step closer as his smirk got even bigger. 

‘I’lll... _ I’lll _ ….Stop enjoying this so much!’ Velletta snapped in frustration. 

‘Don’t make this so enjoyable then.’ 

That insufferable man actually had the audacity to smile! 

Somewhere off she heard water drip from the shower head and the engine of the Quinjet kick into life. The noises sounded far off somehow; here and now it was just the two of them, standing a hair’s breadth from each. She could feel his body heat against her skin, smell his damp hair, she stared into a pair of pale eyes and Bucky stared back…The aura that burned like a candle inside of him wafted as if it was hit by a sudden breeze, jittering but growing brighter...

‘Hey, hurry up! The jet is ready to leave.’ Steve called from somewhere on the landing pad. 

Velletta huffed through nose and began to usher him to the door. ‘You should run along or your wife will get jealous.’ 

‘Think of that one by yourself?’

‘I try,’ Velletta shrugged. 

  * **Drabble 15- Valentines Day**



‘Happy Valentines Day everyone!’ Tony burst into the apartment followed by Happy who didn’t look very happy at all. 

Velletta lowered her book, eyeing the Midgardian’s interactions as Stark pranced about, flourishing boxes with colourful ribbons attached. 

‘Coconut creams for our resident nut,’ Stark sang, planting a kiss on Dr Banners forehead. 

Banner looked bemused but grinned nonetheless.

‘Something dark and mysterious for our dangerous temptress-’ Tony tossed a velvet box to Natasha. ‘Salt water taffy for our resident old man.’ 

‘You really shouldn’t have,’ Steve replied dryly, looking down at the box that had been haphazardly thrown at him. 

‘I wanted to. What type of leader would I be if I didn’t get my team something on Valentines Day.’ 

Tony practically pirotted towards Velletta’s seat. ‘And something nougaty for our angel with a gooey centre.’ 

‘Why?’Velletta eyed the blue box as if it would explode. ‘Why are you bringing everyone sweeties? I am unfamiliar with the practice.’ 

‘I guess you wouldn’t have Valentine's day on Asgard,’ Banner explained kindly. ‘St Valentine is the patron saint of love. Most people get their loved ones flowers or candy.’ 

‘Or diamonds, or promises they never intend to keep.’ Stark remarked, picking absently at his nails. 

‘Back in Brooklyn, Valentine’s Day was just something you only did if you were going steady,’ Steve added. 

Velletta got unsteadily to her feet and scrambled over the back of the arm chair, putting it between herself and Stark. ‘If this is a token of your affection, Stark, then I cannot accept it. As a Valkyrie, I must remain unbiased, if I have made you armoured…’ 

Natasha snorted loudly ‘Relax! Valentine’s day is also an excuse to celebrate friendship and to eat too much chocolate,’ Natasha managed to gasp out. Even Steve had to hide between the pages of his newspaper which shook as he laughed. 

‘Do you have your own traditions on Asgard? It might make you feel more at home,’ Banner asked helpfully, ignoring how the others fell about in silent fits of giggles. 

Velletta hesitated feeling a little embarrassed. She had never seen Steve’s ears grow so pink. 

‘We celebrate Valisbrot, which I think is similar. It is a fire festival, to help chase away winter and banish the darkness away. It celebrates...amorous love and hope for better things .’ 

‘Fire and amorous love, I like the sound of this!’ Stark called as he raised a box of chocolates in the air. 

‘We do not give out sweets but you …,’ it sounded silly now she was telling outsiders about it. ‘You carve a message into a branch of holly and give it to your lover and then we burn them in a communal bonfire so that they gods will hear your prayer. ...We also drink copious amounts of wine.’ 

‘Fire and wine! I like it even more. Let's have ourselves an old fashioned weenie roast.’

Steve abruptly got to his feet and levelled with Stark. ‘You can't be serious. Right now, in the middle of all of this?’ 

‘Hell yes! You heard Velletta, it's about banishing the darkness and looking for hope. I think we all could do with some of that. Even you, Captain Tightpants.’

**

Fire flickered and billowed in the cold air. The field outside the Compound was pitch black but the atmosphere was light and happy despite the biting wind and the flurries of snow which flew through the air. Stark was good to his word and better, the Avengers and SHIELD staff stood around the fire talking, laughing as hot dogs, beer and whiskey were passed around. 

Scott and Sam play wrestled with a pointy ball. Clint was sharing a joke with Natasha, Steve spoke politely to a ground of SHIELD agents- who all seemed to be female. 

She stood slightly apart from the others. Velletta was thankful that they were making an effort . In another life Velletta would have been happy to call this misfit group her friends. 

‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ Velletta spoke quietly to the figure who stood behind her in the shadows. 

Bucky stepped forward into the light. His assassins grace not disturbing any of the dead leaves under his heavy boots. 

‘I heard there were hotdogs.’ 

‘The name is misleading-’ Velletta began quickly.

‘You thought they were made from real dogs?’ Velletta could hear the grin growing on his face. 

Velletta mumbled something that sounded close to  _ ‘ridiculous humans. _ ’ 

‘Did you get many sticks?’ Bucky asked wryly. 

She could tell by now that he was making fun of her. Bucky made a fine art of getting under her skin.

‘If you are asking if I received a carved branch from an admirer, then no, I did not. I shall carve my own this year,’ Velletta replied indignantly. 

Bucky huffed with laughter. 

‘As should you.-’ Velletta held out a branch that had been stripped of bark and split so that one side was smooth enough to write on. 

‘You’re serious?’ 

‘Of course. It does not have to be a name, it can be an affirmation or a prayer for the new year. I shall put it in the fire for you, if you wish.’ 

‘No, I can do it-,’ Bucky accepted the branch hesitantly before adding, ‘ The smoke isn’t so bad.’ 

Velletta nodded with understanding. ‘Decimation burnt fish guts and foul herbs to make the smoke potent.’ She noted dryly. ‘ Anything is better than that.’ 

They stood in companionable silence as one by one the SHIELD staff threw their branches into the fire. Some winked and shot not so subtle looks at their lovers. Others held their messages to their hearts before casting them into the flames. 

‘This is nice. I am glad we did this for you.’ 

‘So am I.’ 

  * **Drabble 15- Fight like a girl**



The javelin balanced perfectly in her hands, sun light glinted off its needle-like point as Velletta twirled it in an arc above her head. She ran her tongue over her lips tasting the air. Slowly she smiled. 

Three agents, lean, agile, armed to the teeth circled her, looking for an opening. Agent Hawks, 6’7, twenty stone of muscle nodded at Gomez. Gomez glanced at Harrleson. 

A light reflected off a watch face, adrenaline sparked through her veins as the agents surged forward. One attacked- abdomen, face, legs. The other two parried, knocking away the end of the javelin as it beat them back. 

Velletta grinned, muscles aching, sweat stinging her eyes- she revelled in the fight. 

‘Gomez, watch your left!’ Steve called from the side-lines. Bucky stood next to him with his arms crossed and his body tense, staring as if committing the fight to memory. 

She twirled her javelin over head, bringing it down hard enough to dent the floor and sweep two sets of legs. 

Pain!

Harrelson’s rough hand sank into her hair and dragged her back. 

Instinct took over. 

She dropped her weapon, clamped her hands down over Harrelson’s and twisted her body, ducking under his open arm, until he cried out in pain. 

Kidney, fourth vertebrae- one punch, one kick sent the agent sailing off the mat, landing in a heap. 

Velletta flicked her javelin with her foot and snatched it out of mid air, slamming it into the face of Gomez. Blood spurted as his nose exploded. Without a second thought she rounded on Agent Hawks. 

His mean little eyes bored into hers as he stepped around the edge of the mat. ‘You fight like a girl. All that dancin’ around, why not face me head on in a good old fashioned showdown.’ 

As a sly smile pulled across Velletta’s face she let her javelin fall out of her hand and harmlessly roll across the floor of the gym. Both fighters watched the weapon disappear out of sight. 

Velletta cocked her eyebrow as if to say - I AM WAITING. 

Hawks sucked air between his teeth and then sprang. Darting low, he aimed a barrage of punches at her, Velletta deflected and struck his chest with an open handed strike. He fell back for a moment...Velletta lowered her guard. The trap was set. 

Hawks eyes narrowed and then…

Stars and sparks flew in front of her eyes. 

Her head snapped backwards and her eyes watered, the world tilted but even as Velletta fell backwards, she braced her hands against the mat and pushed upwards. 

Bucky smiled. He knew her too well. 

Her knee collided with Hawk’s jaw which made a sickening crunch. But she followed through. Her thighs closed around the man’s head and before he could react, Velletta had him pinned to the mat with her full weight pressing down on the side of his head. 

She leered at the man who watched her with wild eyes. 

‘Is that meant to be an insult?’ Velletta’s voice sounded positively dangerous. ‘ Women create life, we hold it within us, rip it from our bodies, care for cowering men while we fight the beasts at the door! Women gave you life, we could just as easily take it from you on a whim.’ 

‘Velletta,’ Steve warned. 

Glancing at Steve’s disapproving look, Velletta slowly released her grip on the man’s face. ‘It's a good thing that Captain America is merciful because I am not.’ 

A little while later, after the medical team had picked up Hawks, Gomez and Harrelson and carried them out the gym on stretchers, Velletta stood near the benches angrily packing her bag. 

‘.. I do not understand Earth customs, you enjoy waging war on each other and killing thousands with fire and chemicals but you pretend to be nice to each other’s faces.’ 

‘You’re asking the wrong human,’ Bucky replied, shouldering his gym kit. 

Steve looked up from the medical paperwork that he now had to fill in and frowned. ‘From what Thor had told me Asgard conquered entire galaxies.’

Velletta hesitated, shifting her uncomfortably from one foot to the other, ‘The Valkyrie freed slaves, fought for peace. What happened after that was out of our hands.’

In the months since she had arrived on Earth, Velletta had thought a lot about this. At one point in her life she thought she’d belonged, had a purpose, and now, after all that time, she realised that she had been nothing more than a pawn. 

‘Sounds like the story of every soldier. Go with good intentions, and then the politicians take over,’ Steve sighed and bit the end of his pen. By his side, Bucky remained pensive, mulling over her words. 

‘Asgard was supposed to be different. We gave order to chaos,’ Velletta replied stubbornly, knowing how childish she sounded. 

‘Who's to say your way was any better?’

Velletta huffed and punched her towel down into her gym bag.‘A hundred years ago I would have been first in line.’ 

‘And now?’ Bucky asked, digging his hands into the pockets of his shorts. 

‘I am certain of nothing anymore.’ 

‘Then you’re in good company,’ Steve laughed good naturedly. 

  * **Drabble 16- Black Tom**



‘I don’t like this.’ 

‘I know.’ Was the only reply Velletta could give. 

They stood huddled in the far corner of the hangar bay, tucked behind a crate of spare parts. Steve had to duck his head to keep out of sight. 

‘He could help.’ 

This was an old argument of Steve’s. He hated keeping anything from Bucky. Bucky was a part of him in the same way his blood was, going against Bucky was like going against himself. 

‘Or it could make it worse. I know what I remember of this man and I don’t want to bring up things that are better left forgotten-,’ Velletta hesitated, trying to soften her voice. ‘Do you have it?’

‘Yeah…’ Steve withdrew a sheet of folded paper from within the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it over. ‘Did I get it right?’

She didn’t need to unfold it to know that it was correct. The image etched on to the paper with charcoal and ink was perfect, Velletta could feel the dark aura radiating from the drawing. 

Opening the paper revealed a lipless, pale and reed thin, piercing eyes staring at her as they had done for so many years. 

‘It is a fair likeness.’ She managed to choke out. 

‘So you have no information on who this man is? ’ 

‘No...I was never given a name. In my head I called him Black Tom-,’ she folded the paper and handed it back to Steve, ‘-.because of the way he moved. Seems silly now.’ 

Steve added kindly, ‘It’s not silly if it helped to keep you sane.’ 

‘Thankyou, Steve, I appreciate that this must be difficult to keep from Bucky.’ 

Velletta checked that the coast was clear before turning to go but Steve laid a hand on her shoulder. 

He was lonely, so lonely. The void growing inside him pained him every day- Velletta shrugged off his hand and quikly closed her Sight. 

‘I...I need to tell you something, Stark wants to keep it quiet but-,’ Steve glanced over the top of the crate before levelling her with an intense gaze, ‘Friday found some kind of calendar etched into the walls of your cell. It's counting down to something.’ 

‘I know,’ Velletta said in a dead voice. 

Steve frowned, ‘You know?’

‘You may be spies but I can read your auras. I’ve known for sometime.’ 

‘Ah.’ 

‘The peace is running out, is it?’ Velletta asked, not really wanting an answer. 

And Steve couldn’t bring himself to respond. 

  * **Drabble 17 - Earth Customs**



It was late even by their standards. The wiring for the life support system kept shorting, blowing fuses and sending a shock of electricity up Velletta’s arms every time she touched the wrong wire. Bucky had finally started to feel guilty about watching her hair go static and volunteered the use of his metal arm. In the cramped confines of the Kite’s engine room, Bucky placed his metal fingertip against each circuit as Velletta, her knees pressed to her chest to give Bucky more room to work, handed him the new circuits. . 

They had already been at it hours and Velletta’s legs were starting to cramp. She winced as she shifted into a better position, ‘I wandered if I might try something on you?’ 

‘A new move?’ Bucky didn’t look up from his work, his tongue was stuck out of the corner of his mouth. 

‘No, no. It's an earth custom I saw on a film that Morgan showed me, I would like to practice it,’ She replied exactly, like she had asked to run through another flight simulation. 

‘Sure-’ Bucky dusted off his hands on the thighs of his tattered jeans and pivoted on his knees to face Velletta but as he turned he drew up short.

Velletta leaned into his space, watching him expectantly. 

He started to ask a question but silently her eyes flicked nervously as she began to inch closer, until he could see the flecks of yellow within her green eyes. For a fraction of a second she hesitated, with their noses almost touching, then pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth, where his lips met his cheek. 

Bucky was too stunned to speak for a moment; it was featherlight, they barely touched at all like the air off a hummingbird’s wing but he felt his skin had been seared. 

‘Well? Did I do it right?’ Velletta sat back and asked, looking at him expectantly. 

Bucky struggled to find his voice, ‘You don’t kiss on Asgard?’ 

She blinked and shook her head, ‘Not really.’ 

A heavy stone landed suddenly in Bucky’s stomach. ‘Right, well... It was fine.’ 

He struggled to his feet and eased himself out of the engine room’s narrow hatch. Valletta followed as Bucky began pretending to search for his oil rag. ‘What do you do instead?’ He asked to fill the silence and his head continued to reel. 

Velletta hesitated, fiddling absently with a button on her overalls, not wanting to meet his eyes. She closed the gap between them with small steps until he could feel her body pressed against his thighs. His breath hitched as her hand closed around his wrist and guided until it lay over her heart. He could feel her heartbeat drumming rhythmically under his fingertips. Slowly, she lifted her hand and pressed it against his, mirroring each other. 

‘Now what?’ He heard himself ask, his voice sounded loud and rough in his ears. 

Without a word, Velletta leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his. Hearts connected, beats travelled through bodies until Bucky couldn’t tell Velletta’s from his own. 

Bucky closed his eyes and breathed deeply. 

Lights danced off the water, a warm autumn wind rose up and took the chill away from his bones. He would never be cold again, it was light and strong and good...and it was Velletta, he felt her mind and her, truly her, what she was, what she felt like; he let her wash over him. 

I shouldn’t be doing this, a small part of him said while another shouted desperately, don’t let this end!

Velletta jumped suddenly as if stung, as the Avengers alarm screamed into life. 


	11. Phase 2: Chapter 11: To Burn (prt1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up so much longer than I intended so I have had to split it in two. The Drabbles are written slightly out of order but you'll get it. 
> 
> -What we deserve  
> -Action Stations  
> -Tempers  
> -The beginning

**Drabble 1: What we deserve…**

‘We shouldn’t be doing this.’ 

‘That's what you said last night, and the night before that,’ Velletta shot him a wolfish smile as she threw open the window to her suite, heedless of the cold night air. 

Velletta stood, naked and completely unashamed in the moonlight, basking in its silver rays. Light played off her pale skin and sinus muscles, hair brushed haphazardly away from her face, she welcomed the moon with open arms. 

‘I mean it!’ Bucky snapped angrily. He gripped the edge of the bed till the frame creaked. 

She turned then, her high cheekbones thrown into sharp relief by the moon. Bucky could not see her face but he knew it would be unreadable. 

‘The door is open, I won’t stop you,’ Velletta said simply but not unkindly as she crossed the bedroom and flopped on the bed beside him, laying back on the sheets. ‘We agreed that this is just about the sex.’

‘No room for affection in the heart of a Valkyrie.’ Bucky huffed through his nose and braced his elbows on his knees. Suddenly his white shirt and boxer shorts felt suffocating him. 

He fought not to run his hands over the plane of her stomach or card his fingers through her hair or… 

‘This wasn't about affection for either of us.’ 

Bucky was silent for a moment. He let the quiet darkness, smell of the woods drifting in on the wind and the gentle heat rising from Velletta’s skin pass through him. 

_ ‘No, this wasn’t about affection,’  _ Bucky told himself _.  _

Yet from the dark recesses of his mind, Winter had been watching.  **_“This was about so much more.”_ **

‘Nah, you’re right. It's just…’ Bucky looked down at his hands. ‘ After everything I’ve done, I don’t deserve any of this.’ 

The bed shifted and suddenly Velletta was before him, straddling his lap, her naked body pressed against his clothing, making him burn and freeze at the same time. Light from the open window threw every hard edge, every scar and every freckle into sharp relief. Bucky felt the urge to draw back so that he could study her, analyse the way the muscles in her shoulders bunched or how the curve of her spine sloped down to meet her thighs, but he could not...

‘We’ve done nothing wrong, Bucky. If our reward for enduring all those years of being nothing more than Draugr, is a few small moments of not reliving that torment-,’ Valletta’s hands were either side of his face, holding him still, eyes boring deep into his own as she growled in a low voice. ‘ -then I would say we deserve to enjoy it with each other. Because not one of the people out there will understand.’ 

‘We should keep this quiet-’ he hesitated, unsure of himself. His mouth was dry, his brain had decided not to function ‘- us, sleeping together.’ 

Velletta rested her hands back in Bucky’s thighs and made an impatient noise.

‘There will be no sleeping involved. We are enjoying each other...’

‘It is just a saying!’ Bucky responded impatiently, caught Velletta around the waist and tossed her back onto the bed as he began to pace. ‘ I just meant that two Hydra agents ...enjoying each other… doesn’t fly straight.’ 

‘I was never Hydra!’ Velletta huffed, as she wrestled her way out of blankets. ‘ And, if you care to know, I’ve turned down many princes in my time. You should be grovelling at my feet.’ 

Bucky stopped short and despite all his misgivings and worries, he found himself smiling back at the women who could rip someone limb from limb, who could take your soul from your body; at the women whose hair was stuck up with static and a sweaty blush covering her face. 

Something in him told him that this was the right thing to say. ‘Well, I am definitely not one of your Prince Charmings, Angel. Don’t be expectin’ me to grovel.’ 

A sly, sultry grin grew on Velletta’s face as she caught the hem of his shirt and began to pull him back to the bed. ‘I wouldn’t want you to.’ 

**Drabble 2: Action Stations**

_ Velletta jumped suddenly as if stung, as the Avengers’ alarm screamed into life _ .

For a split second she stared at Bucky. His fingers had tightened around hers, pressing her hand hard against his skin as if he wasn’t going to let go. His aura was almost blinding, a single point of light in a dark night. 

A word came out of Bucky’s mouth but was torn away by the noise of the siren. 

Velletta stumbled backwards clumsily, snatching her hand back and tripping over her own feet as she rushed to get to the Kite’s hatch. The hatch clanged loudly as Velletta hauled it open too violently, launching herself out and landed neatly.

The hangar disappeared behind her as she sprinted towards the meeting room, her feet pounding loudly on the concrete. Distantly she registered Bucky someway behind her- she put on a burst of speed. 

Slipping along the polished floor, Velletta nearly collided with Natasha and Wanda at the door of the conference room. 

‘What is this infernal noise?’ Velletta asked, wincing and putting her hands over her ears. 

‘Friday’s picked up something on her scans.’ 

‘But that’s good news, isn’t it?’ Wanda asked, frowning at Natasha. 

Agent Romanov and Velletta shared a subtle glance before filing into the conference room. Velletta stayed standing, keeping to the shadows and her back to the wall as she watched the last stragglers take their seats. All except Bucky, his frame blocked out most of the doorway, thick arms folded across his chest, he’d fixed his eyes on the projector and his aura was locked down tight. 

Velletta forced her eyes towards the front of the room as Steve cleared his throat. 

‘At 0600 hours, European standard time, a top secret weapons silo belonging to the United Nations was attacked, infiltrated and ransacked.’ 

Steve’s grim face was illuminated by the pale light of the projector. His spine was ramrod straight, hands clasped behind his back- businesslike. 

‘Let me guess, their security was knocked out by an EMP blast and our sticky little friends paid them a visit?’ Tony asked tightly.

He acted nonchalant but Velletta heard his heart spike and muscles in his fist strain. 

With a grim nod, Steve moved the projector on till it showed pictures of black streaked scorch marks and crumbling concrete. 

‘What was taken?’ Sam Wilson asked with interest, leaning forward to get a better look at the images.

‘2 kilograms of military grade plutonium.’

‘That’s not a lot, right? I mean, what could they possibly do with 2 kilograms?’ Clint asked. 

‘The Hiroshima Bomb was made with 5 kilograms,’ Steve responded humourlessly. ‘ Best case scenario they use the plutonium as a bargaining chip.’ 

‘And what’s the worst case?’ Sam asked in a voice that sounded he already knew the answer. 

A muscle jumped in Steve’s jaw. ‘They have enough firepower to wipe out some of the biggest cities in the world.’ 

Clint let out a low whistle. 

‘There’s more,’ Steve sighed unhappily. 

Tony sat back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Nope! I’ve had enough of the Cap’ Good News Train today.’ 

‘Friday has finished analysing Decimation’s calendar-’ 

The entire team began to shift uncomfortably in their seats, pointedly not looking in Bucky or Velletta’s direction. 

_ Ridiculous humans _ . 

‘You may unclench, don’t worry, I already knew about the calendar,’ Valletta called dryly. 

‘So who told?’ Sam frowned.

‘Not me!’ 

‘It was not my information to divulge.’ 

‘Snitches get stitches.’ 

‘I forgot about it.’ 

‘Hush up!’ Steve raised his voice. ‘The point is that we have two months. A matter of days to figure out what the calendar is counting down to and we need to to do it fast-’

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Clint snorted with laughter. 

Steve’s ears turned bright red but he soldiered on, ignoring Clint’s fit of silent giggles. ‘Natasha, where are we with intel?’ 

She braced her hands on the table in a business like fashion. ‘It’s slow. Sources are either scarce or scared. My contacts have found someone who may be able to tell us more about the ‘demon world’, but I’m not getting my hopes up.’ 

‘On that score, we may have had some luck-,’ 

Steve pressed a button and a new image appeared, one that made Velletta’s insides turn cold. His eyes flicked anxiously to Bucky and then to Velletta before he continued speaking. 

‘Velletta positively id’d this man as one of Decimation’s leaders. He was seen at the blast site…’ 

The image was pixelated, grainy and distorted in places but there was no doubt. 

Black Tom. 

_ “My sparrow, so unhappy in her cage.”  _

_ Cold eyes, no life, no warmth. She felt nothing, Velletta felt as though she was staring into the vacuum of space.  _

_ His face twisted into what could have been a smile as she pulled away, tugging uselessly at her chains.  _

_ “Maybe I should bring you some company. Would you like to see your old friend again, the Asset?’ A hand blurred, darting out from beneath the man’s suit to grab Velletta’s jaw and twist her face round. “I think you have secretly missed our little experiments.’  _

‘Velletta.. _.Velletta _ !’ 

‘...Yes,’ she managed to choke as the conference room swam back into focus. The eyes of the team were all fixed, watching her every move. All except Bucky, he kept his face so still it looked like stone. 

‘Can you tell us anymore about this man?’ Steve asked firmly, obviously repeating his question. 

‘Spells-,’ Velletta blurted out in a half choked way. 

‘What kind of spells?’ Stark asked shortly. 

The room began to swim again, a pounding in her head sprang up, her throat closing up, no air, no space, AND THE CHANTING, CHANTINGCHANTINGCHANTING...

‘ Entrapment, weakening,’ Bucky said loudly, drawing all the eyes in the room, ‘so that your body feels like lead.’

‘A prison without locks,’ Velletta murmured, echoing a memory from deep inside a dark part of her mind. __

Steve sucked in a harsh hiss of air between his teeth and slapped his hand against the screen harder than he had indeed to. ‘He is priority number one. We need a name, we need a location. We find this man and we find Decimation. We are against the clock now, and time is against our side….dismissed.’ 

**Drabbles 3: Tempers**

‘ _ Fuck!’  _ Bucky swore under his breath as the spanner snapped in two, slicing the inside of his hand and embedding itself in the control panel. 

With a snarl of frustration, he threw the pieces across the cockpit of the Kite and slumped down into the Captain’s chair. 

In the past two days, Bucky had had more emotions waging war inside his chest then he’d had in the past 70 years. There was fear, anxiety, self doubt. He’d brought Decimation to their door, put Steve in danger and now their time was running out… Any normal person should have cut and run, got his grab bag and convinced Stevie to take a long vacation to Staten Island, maybe even New England. 

And then there was anger, frustration, pain...and there was Velletta. When he thought about Velletta, his stomach churned and his mind grinded to a screeching stop. 

_ “Velletta is… _ ,” Bucky began to say to himself.

“ **She is ours** .”

“She is our friend. Nothing more.” Bucky retorted stubbornly, 

“ **You are lying to yourself** .”

‘It changes nothing!’ Bucky snarled out loud, kicking angrily at a tool box and he launched himself out of the chair so that he could pace. 

It was cramped in the cockpit, Bucky could only get a couple of feet before bumping his head and having to turn back round. Tiredly he sighed and braced his hands against the console.

He knew he shouldn’t let his guard down. He knew he couldn’t let anyone close. He couldn’t risk it, not after everything. 

Any child he brought into the world would have his serum. Hydra had tried, of course. The Winter Soldier had blocked out most of it as best he could but there’s only so much space in dark parts of his mind. When it is overflowing, memories tend to escape. He tried to block it out, the tests, the samples, the ‘volunteers’ who he’d been told to… Time and time again he’d botched the experiments. Even in the Winter Soldier’s mind, he’d known it would be wrong to bring a child into that mess.

His chest felt uncomfortably tight as he thought about the endless chanting, blurred images of half forgotten faces chasing through his dreams, and altars of blood, always blood.

But, even after all that, why was it so hard to say no to her?

‘Because I’m an idiot!’ Bucky snarled again, this time punching the side of the cockpit and leaving a fist sized indent. 

_ I should never have allowed her to kiss me, I should have pushed her away and never have been happy with her or joked, or stole Sam’s car or got her a Christmas gift and… _

Panting, Bucky drew up short as two figures appeared on the edge of the tree line. 

A ten tonne weight suddenly landed in the bottom of Bucky’s stomach. 

Walking arm in arm, Steve and Velletta walked towards the hangar bay, talking, laughing, smiling. A memory popped into Bucky’s head of an old fashioned greetings card of a couple walking along the Coney Island pier. The sun created a halo around Steve’s golden hair and Velletta’s pale skin and pale copper hair seemed to glow in the low light. 

Ducking down low, Bucky watched them from the cockpit window as they reached the hangar bay door. 

It all happened in slow motion; a numbing cold began to spread through Bucky’s body, Velletta tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and smiled shyly, Steve chuckled and pulled her into an embrace, gently lifting her off the ground for a moment. 

He felt the Winter Soldier stir uncomfortably but he alter ego said nothing, he didn’t need to. The numb feeling spread until the only thing Bucky felt was cold. 

**

**Drabbles 4: The beginning**

They had worked in silence for most of the evening. Bucky had barely taken his eyes off the communications array that he was programming. He bent his head to the task, brow furrowed in concentration and his jaw clenched. 

His aura seemed troubled, stormy and unsettled. Every so often his light sparked with colours of lime green, purple, icy blue- it threw shadows against the swirling dark, half concealed monsters reaching for the light before being lost to the darkness once again. 

Velletta knew better than to ask but after three hours with her nose buried in the life support system, she sat back and stretched out her spine. 

The Kite had come a long way from what it had been. They had gutted it, rebuilt it into something that vaguely resembled a ship. Sections of panelling still hung off the wall and you had to watch you step or you’d end up falling into the hold but it was beginning to look like something. 

Velletta worried at her lip and dug her hands into the pockets of her overalls. ‘I need to ask you something.’ 

Bucky didn’t turn his attention from the communications array. ‘Cant stop you,’ he grunted, hunching his shoulders. 

She bounced on the balls of her feet, played with some wiring that was hanging down, wanting Bucky to look round but not wanting to meet his eye. ‘Would you have any objections to me starting a relationship?’

What Velletta thought would happen didn’t. As she blurted out the words, Bucky’s hands braced against the communications array, he stopped breathing. 

Fumbling over her words, suddenly unsure of herself, Velletta stumbled on. ‘I’ve questioned my motives many times...many times... and have found that I cannot turn myself away.’ 

‘The heart wants what the heart wants,’ Bucky said tightly. 

‘It's physiology, nothing more-,’ Velletta was pacing now, from one side of the hull to the other, letting words spill out of her mouth. ‘ My brain reacts to qualities I myself lack: constancy, calmness. We both have shared experiences that no one else could fathom. Plus being less fragile compared to other men is, I admit, a large part of it.’ 

Bucky let out a humourless laugh and swung round in his seat, ‘You sure know how to flatter a guy.’ 

‘Flattery has nothing to do with it. This is mere practicality-,’ she tried to reassure him, ‘for whatever reason our biologies are compatible, we have denied our natures long enough.’ 

‘Compatible?’ Bucky said in surprise. 

‘Of course. Our bodies are stronger, our minds sharper…’ Velletta hesitated for a moment. ‘You don’t think we are compatible.’ 

‘How the hell would I know…’ Bucky threw down his tools and got to his feet, striding past Velletta towards the end of the ship. ‘In fact, keep me out of it. I don’t need those images running through my head.’ 

‘What...images of what?’ Velletta asked, frowning as she jogged after him. 

‘You and him,’ Bucky snapped. 

Velletta blinked at him as if he had just started speaking in a Quoll dialect. ‘What are you talking about?’ 

‘It’s fine!’ Bucky snapped before sucking in a breath through his teeth and centring himself. He turned to her suddenly and fixed her with an intense stare. ‘I hope you are happy together. I know he’s a good guy, he’ll treat you right.’ 

Velletta frowned, ‘Is this some earth humour that I am not understanding?’ 

‘I’m serious, I hope you and Steve will be happy together.’ 

Something grinded to a halt in Velletta’s head. Her mouth opened and then closed, once, twice before she could find the right words. 

‘Me and Steve?...In a professional capacity?’ 

‘In a …’ a muscle twitched in Bucky’s jaw and he looked at the floor, kicking a twisted piece of metal down into the hold, ‘...personal capacity.’ 

Realisation made Velletta’s brain both grind to a halt and surge into overdrive. At first she let out a very unladylike laugh/scream/snort as she tried to string two words together between fits of giggles. 

‘No! No, thats.. _ so no _ ...Bucky, you clod headed bilge sniper! You!’ She punched his arm to emphasise the fact. ‘I am talking about you.’

Bucky frowned and for a moment a strange expression passed over his face. 

Velletta sighs with frustration, shaking her head. ‘You’re not going to make this easy for me are you?’ 

It was almost reassuring. No matter which world you were on, or what galaxy you were in; universally, men are clueless. 

She stepped away to glance out of the cockpit window. The hangar bay was quiet and dark, the security doors locked for the night and all the staff were asleep in the military quarters two levels up. 

Without much more ceremony, Velletta tugged her shirt over her head, revealing a sports bra and letting the garment fall to the floor by her feet. ‘Bucky, you are the man I want.’ 

Bucky quickly averted his eyes, his hands sank into his hair as he looked this way and that, as if he was trying to find the exit, and yet his feet didn’t move. 

Velletta could hear his heart pumping erratically as she approached him. Tentatively, she reached out with her fingertips and traced a line from his heart, up his throat, letting it brush the dark stubble of his jaw. 

‘I want to feel something other than anger,’ she spoke so softly it was as if she was just breathing, ‘I need to know that I am capable of feeling something other than hatred.’

As he turned his pale eyes to hers, looking down at her face- he was unreadable. There was sadness, pain, empathy- they could have been at the centre of a maelstrom and it would not have changed a single thing. 

Bucky lightly held her arms as Velletta turned her face upwards and pressed a small, uncertain kiss against his mouth.

There was a pause, a heart beat, Velletta looked shocked at what she had just done and Bucky couldn’t quite believe his eyes. The mutual need .  The kiss, the look, a stolen moment that could have just washed away but instead was set, indelible, indefinable, all they knew was that they needed each other.

Velletta’s nails sank into Bucky’s clothing, his strong hands pulled her closer till she was on the very tips of her toes, her body flush against his but yet it was not enough- would never, could never be enough. 

Their kisses were wet and hard and desperate, fighting for control, soft yet demanding. Bucky moaned low in his throat as Velletta tugged at his hair, trying to drag him deeper into her mouth. 

She felt like she was on fire, every part of Velletta wanted to curl up and succumb to the flames. She needed more. 

They both stumbled backwards, arms and legs tangled as Bucky ravaged Velletta’s mouth. Her legs hit the control panel of the cockpit just as Bucky ripped away the clasp of her sports bra, in shreds it fell away. A cry of pleasure escaped from her lips as his large warm hands made their way up her spine, tracing over the sensitive scar tissue where her wings had once been. 

Bucky pulled away, breathless and panting, to watch her with concern. He took a gulp of air and then another before trying to pull away but Velletta locked her ankles around his waist and pulled him flush against her. 

‘I thought Valkyries couldn’t form attachments,’ he breathed, arms braced against the console as he stared down into her eyes. 

Her hand trembled slightly as she reached up and brushed a lock of dark hair out of his face,‘I just want to have control of something, I just need…’ 

But something broke. A pain shattered over Bucky’s face, his eyes were unfathomable as he eased himself out of Velletta’s grip. 

‘No, I can’t risk it….’ he took a step back and then another, typing to put as much distance between them as he could, ‘I could hurt you…’

‘For Frigga’s sake, I’m an immortal warrior!’ Velletta slammed her fist into the control panel. 

‘I can’t risk…!’ Bucky snapped back quickly, trying to retreat further but Velletta chased after him and blocked the hatch with her semi naked body. 

‘Making another abomination? I am not suggesting that we reproduce-,’ Bucky tried to turn away again but Velletta grabbed his elbow and forced him round to face her defiantly. 

‘ I am suggesting that we have a sexual relationship- purely sexual and nothing more. ...I have the fertility rune, drawn by the Highmother of the Conclave ….’ 

With a hint of desperation, Velletta stuck out her forearm. The rune looked like your average scar but to anyone with a trained eye it showed three runes embroiled with Frigga’s magic. 

Bucky remained quiet as he silently ran his thumb over the runes. 

‘Tell me now if this is what you want,’Velletta sucked in a steadying breath. Valkyries do not beg, and she may be many things but she still had her dignity. ‘If not...I would like us to remain friends.’ 

‘This will change everything.’ 

Velletta’s toes curled, he spoke in a low, husky voice that made her belly tighten with anticipation. 

‘Only if we let it.’ 

Bucky hesitated, his metal hand hovering over her skin, tracing her collar bones and enjoying the feel of warmth running through his hand. ‘But what if you hurt me?’ 

For a moment, Velletta was lost for words. She couldn’t get past the tenderness in his eyes, or the fathomless pain that they hid. She wanted to spill out her soul, tell him would kill everyone who had harmed him, hide him away and make sure he would never feel cold again. 

But she couldn’t find the right words. 

Instead she lifted his metal and pressed his palm to her lips, fixing him with an intense glare. ‘If I ever hurt you, you have my permission to feed me to the Coffinlich’ on Votronope Prime.’ 

Bucky chuckled and then chewing the inside of his mouth asked thoughtfully, ‘Just sex?’ 

‘Just sex. I do not want any courting of any kind-, Velletta began to count off on her fingers, ‘That means not ballads or sonnets, love tokens, public declarations-’ 

‘Alright, aright, you drive a hard bargain but-,’ Bucky stepped back and pulled his t-shirt over his head, ‘fine, you win.’ 

Thank Frigga! Velletta sighed to herself as her eyes roamed over chiselled torso and washboard stomach, like he had been carved from a tree. Everything about Bucky was beautiful. And large and solid...Thank the gods! Velletta’s mouth watered as he pulled his jeans down over a thick pair of thighs to reveal his throbbing cock, hard and eager. 

Before she could catch her breath, Bucky’s mouth was on hers, breathing life into her fire. Strong hands wrapped around her waist, Velletta cried out in pleasure as her centre crushed against his hard torso. Reaching up, Velletta grabbed some cargo netting strung from the ceiling and drew Bucky close, so that she could feel every hitch of his stomach and breath across her skin. 

‘You taste like heaven, Angel,’ Bucky grinned as he licked his way down her neck, capturing one of her nipples and pinching it lightly with his teeth. 

Velletta squirmed, gasping and writhing as he smiled against her heated skin. 

‘I nee...I need-’ she struggled to speak, exquisite tension building in her core, making her toes curl and her muscles quiver. With a snarl of frustration, Velletta pushed Bucky backwards with her legs, swung down and tackled him to the floor. 

She had waited more than a hundred years for this, she would not wait another moment. 

They wrestled playfully at first, Bucky cupped her ass as she rubbed herself against his length. Tool boxes and equipment were kicked aside, until somehow, they found themselves in the captain’s cabin laying on Velletta’s bunk. 

Bucky swore under his breath as he tore open the wrapper of a Avengers branded condom that Sam had given him for a joke. Velletta eyed it sceptically and pulled Bucky backwards onto the mattress once he was finished with his silly Midgardian remedy. 

Hand braced on the head board, Bucky hitched Velletta’s leg high over his hip, with a wolfish grin, she flipped them. But as she stared down at him, pupils blown wide with lust and lips flushed - for the first time in a long time, Velletta second guessed herself. 

Gently, more gently than she’d ever been with a lover, Velletta laced her fingers with his, metal and flesh, and together they pleasured her, fingers messaging her centre. Delving into her heat and teasing her wetness- pulling pleasure from her body that she didn’t think capable. 

‘Do you want this?’ She gasped out suddenly, surprising herself.

Bucky sat up on his elbows and pulled her into a searing kiss, murmuring against her lips. ‘I want you.’ 

If she had replied, Velletta couldn’t remember. Their friendship has never been built on words. 

With one last scorching kiss, Velletta reared up and took Bucky into her body, slowly impaling herself with his cock until she was full to the brim. 

‘ _Ek er thin ok thu er mi_ ,’ she gasped out as her body trembled, throbbing and yearning from the feel of him. 

Bucky watched in rapture as she writhed with pleasure, his hands caressed her warm breast while the other cupped her cheek. She nuzzled into his palm, purring as she did so. He froze slightly as she leaned forward, stretching out across his body and breathing into his neck as her body began to languidly, luxuriously, rise and fall like a wave. 

With trembling hands, he pulled her close.  One small tear slid from the corner of his right eye. Slamming them shut, he surrendered himself to her. Right now, this moment, she owned him in a way no one ever had before

The night hours drifted away from but they did not have a care in the world. It was only when the sun was rising, they lay in a tangle of blankets, breathless and sweaty, that Velletta looked over to Bucky. Her hair stuck up in every direction and her skin was heated in a rosey glow, but she looked completely and utterly satisfied and spent. 

‘I had forgotten what it was like.’ 

Bucky smiled a little smugly. ‘I shall take that as a compliment.’ 

Velletta huffed as she rolled over and used her arm as a pillow. ‘And how do you feel?’ 

‘Good-,’ Bucky frowned as if surprised by his answer. ‘I feel really good.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankyou for reading. This story is really only just kicking off so stay tuned. Please subscribe, comment and kudos to make me write faster. 
> 
> Norse dictionary:   
> Ek er thin ok thu er mi- I am yours and you are mine.


	12. Phase 2: Chapter 12: To Burn (prt 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You lucky lucky people. This is one of the longest chapters that I've ever written, mainly because the smut got ahead of me. This chapter is mainly about a growing sense of intimacy and developing emotions.  
>  Enjoy!
> 
> -Drabble 6: Agreement  
> \- Drabble 7: To sleep   
> \- Drabble 8: Memories   
> \- Drabble 9: Vengeance and Guilt  
> -Drabble 10: Sick (this is probably my favourite thing that I have ever written)   
> -Drabbles 11 : Maps   
> -Drabbles 12: Flowers

**Drabble 6: Agreement**

Their intimacy had rules. They were mostly unspoken but they both knew what had to happen for their ritual to take place. And that's how Velletta thought of it, a cleansing ritual. It was as if they were both fighting off their horrors with earthly pleasures. 

A complex list of occurrences had to take place for this to happen. 

Everyone in the compound had to be asleep by 1:30 am- if they were still up or out of bed for whatever reason: the SpecialBowl had caught them both off guard and meant they had been trapped in the laundry room until dawn: Velletta knew that the team would not be sleeping deeply and would risk overhearing them.

They both needed to visit the gym during the day. Without expelling hateful frustration, their meetings were snippy- more like a battle of wills fought against each other. Bucky would withdraw into himself and Velletta would snarl and snipe. This was not what either of them wanted. 

It had been in the early hours of the morning, when they lay tangled in the sleeping bag in the cabin of the Kite, when an unsettling thought crossed her mind. Velletta’s body must have twitched because Bucky rolled over so he could see her. 

‘I meant it, I would like us to remain friends.’ 

Bucky sighed, crossing his arms under his head. ‘Can’t say I have much experience in that area. From what I can remember girls never seemed to stick around for long…,’ he began thoughtfully, ‘Probably cause I didn’t have the money to treat right-’ 

‘Or because you were so full of yourself that you never really bothered to get to know them,’ Velletta interjected, sitting up on her elbow. 

Bucky nudged her with his arm and Velletta playfully punched him back before reaching over to a set of drawers that they’d built into the walls of the cabin and pulled out a couple of chocolate bars. 

She hesitated for a moment, playing with the edge of the wrapper. ‘I realise this is not the way things are usually done on Earth and, I admit, it is a little strange even for an Asgardian but-’ 

‘If half of what Sam says is true, what we’re doing is pretty mundane.’ 

‘He is all hot wind- 

‘I think you mean hot air.’ 

‘-But I want to make myself clear, Bucky-,’ Velletta fixed him with an intense, ‘If we are not compatible...I will fight for our friendship before I fight for our lust.’ 

Bucky looked taken back for a moment. It was easy to forget that Velletta was an alien. ‘Agreed but on one condition, don’t use your Sight when we’re…’

‘Having intercourse?’ Velletta interjected helpfully. 

‘Yeah, that. I don’t want you trying to second guess me while we’re together in that way.’ He hesitated, knowing how hard this would be for her. ‘We need to be able to trust each other.’ 

Velletta studied her chocolate bar. Sight could be both a blessing and a curse. You knew parts of a person that they could not begin to fathom, you could guess their decisions before they made them and see a betrayal as it was brewing. If anyone else had asked, she would have thrown them from her bed and banished them forever from her sight. But Bucky was different. 

‘Agreed.’

Bucky grinned as he tapped his chocolate bar against hers. ‘Cheers.’ 

‘ _ Skol _ ,’ Velletta smiled to herself. 

And so they pass each night together, one evening bleeding into the next. 

They would both retire early from the common room, giving them time to shower and nap. The others would give sidelong glances and ask them to stay for another episode but with a few small omissions they were able to sneak off undetected. 

For Velletta she also had to have utter control. It was not lost on them that everything was by her terms. Bucky never pushed her, his touches light, skimming over her skin, leaving fluttering trails up and down her body. He was good… more than good… He played her like a skilled artist would an instrument. There was nothing soft about Velletta, everything about her had a hard edge but under his hands, his touches and his body, he made her feel like a luxurious piece of silk being run through his fingers. 

Whereas Velletta clung to Bucky like she was wrestling a wave, pulling him closer as she rode him, breaking furniture and crying out in pleasure as he made her cum. 

It was in the quiet moments, their bodies hot and sticky from their efforts, Velletta’s damp bed sheet wrapped around their bodies. They both felt at peace.

‘Are these where they were?’ Bucky asked, his fingers skimming over her back. 

Velletta shivered as his fingers ran down one of her scars, starting at the top of her shoulder blade and running down slowly to the small of her back. From each of her shoulders, it looked like a large ‘V’ had been painted onto her skin. His breath was hot, with the chill of the night air coming in from the window, it made goose pimples spring up all over her body but she did not pull away. 

‘I used to dream of flying in the early days, I’d fly out of my cell and disappear into the sunset like a bad western,’ Bucky said quietly, his hands never stopping their gentle caress. ‘What is like?’ 

Velletta turned to him, resting her cheek on the backs of her hand. ‘Cold and wet-,’ she smiled fondly, ‘-terrifying at first but then, when you break through the clouds for the first time...there are entire palaces and temples made of cloud and sunshine and the best part is that they are made for your eyes only.’ 

Bucky huffed lightly through his nose, ‘Way to make a guy jealous.’ 

Velletta smiled as patted his arm, ‘Don’t worry, if you are on your best behaviour I may let you take the Kite out for a test drive.’ 

‘Only cause you know the thrusters are playing up again,’ Bucky pretended to grumble. 

**Drabble 7: To sleep**

The day had been long and trying. Images of bomb sites, bodies and utter carnage plagued Velletta’s mind until she didn’t know if she was waking or dreaming. It didn’t help that her stomach had coiled itself into a knot, so tight she felt she would shatter any moment. And it was all thanks to that thick headed, pig herding….

The only lead they had was a warehouse in Paris that housed vehicles connected to one of the robberies. For the last week, Captain Rogers and Bucky had staked it out but with it being the utmost secrecy communications had to be kept to a minimum. 

Velletta let out a heavy sigh as she reached for her doorknob. She stilled instantly when she saw that her window was wide open, her white curtains blowing in the stormy wind. 

Velletta had raised her fists but she was unprepared for the forecity of his kiss; he pinned her to the wall, denting the plaster. 

_ Bucky _

She gripped the front of his tactical vest pulling him closer and he cupped her face to ravish her lips. 

He’d always been so reserved and cool, she never suspected how sexy it would be for him to lose control like this. His lips tormented her as his hands began unbuttoning her blouse. She swallowed at the heat pounding through her. 

The smell of gun metal and leather, salt and fresh rain. His warmth, the taste of his tongue in her mouth, she hadn’t realised how much she had been craving him. There was something about him that made her restless and calm. 

Bucky pulled back from her lips as he opened the last button of her blouse. Her breasts, covered by a plain but practical bra, made his mouth water, they were the perfect handful. He kept waiting for her to push him away, tackle him to the floor and take him fiercely like Velletta normally would. 

She didn’t. Her eyes were wide and filled with lust as she panted, trying to pull him against her. 

Taking a deep breath, he reached for the glasp and let the garment fall to the floor. He met her gaze and the raw hunger between them set him on fire. He cupped the right breast in his hand, amazed by the softness of her skin as he teased her taut nipple between his fingers. Feeling like he was dying of thirst, he dipped his head down and took her into his mouth. 

With every lick, her stomach contracted. His mouth was so hot as he sucked and played. His breath scorched her skin. She cupped his head to her, unable to believe how much pleasure he gave her. 

‘Why...Why is your hair wet?And your clothes...’ She heard herself ask breathlessly. 

Bucky smiled wolfishly as he swiped the rough pad of his thumb over her nipple making her breath hitch. ‘Stevie is still in the garage. I told him I wanted to run some laps before turning in.’ 

‘But…’Velletta braced her hand against his chest and pushed him back a step. ‘Please tell me you didn’t climb up the side of the building in a storm.’ 

He eyed her like a predator as he peeled off layer after layer of soaked clothing, until he stood naked, stretching out his muscles . Huffing slightly he combed his long dark hair through his fingers and away from his face. He stepped close to her again, till their noses were almost touching. 

‘I don’t know what you want me to say-,’ he shrugged cockily. ‘I was too impatient to wait for the elevator.’ 

Before she could speak he kissed her again, it was slowly, unhurried but deep and if he was reaching down inside her body and teasing pleasure out of her. He moved to her other breast as he unzipped her jeans. 

‘Touch me, please,’ she gasped, dying for something to sate the fire inside.

Bucky obliged her as he slid his flesh hand under the waistband of her panties. Velletta trembled against him as he sank his hand down further until he could separate the tender folds of her body and run his fingers down her most sensitive part. 

Velletta made a strangled cry of pleasure which she cut off by biting down on the back of her hand. 

Smiling with satisfaction, Bucky wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her flush against him. Stumbling slightly, he laid Velletta gently down on to the bed. His chest felt tight as he took in the sight of her like that. She was so beautiful and all he wanted to do was please her- to have her hands on his body, soothing him. He brought her hand to his lips so that he could taste her fingertips. The scent and the sweet taste made his cock so hard it was all he could do not to attack her where she lay.

It had been all he could think about during the endless hours they staked out the warehouse. It was maddening. And yet…

And yet as she lay there watching him with her pale eyes half lidded in pleasure, her breasts rising and falling as she panted, Bucky couldn't bring himself to fuck her. All he wanted to do was take his cock in hand and thrust it deep into her warm heat. It would welcome, grip him, hold him in places he didn't know he wanted to be held.

But no, he needed to memorize her face as she orgasmed. He wanted to savour her slowly. 

Looking up at his pale face, for a moment it was as if Bucky was lost in thought, staring at her blankly, his eyes wide and his lips beestung. He is beautiful, Velletta thought as she reached for him, cupping his cheek in her hand and drawing him back to the here and now. 

With a little shake of the head, he kissed her palm and then sank to his knees in front of her. With hungry eyes and firm hands, he reached for her panties with feral intent that made her even more breathless. Bucky lifted both her ankles with one hand, easing the cotton over her feet and tossing them over his shoulder impatiently. She had to suppress a giggle as he nipped at the inside of her thigh, playfully batting his cheek but he caught them with his metal hand and slid her index fingers into his mouth. 

Velletta felt like she would spontaneously combust, she shivered as her stomach coiled with anticipation as his tongue played with the sensitive pad of her fingers. 

There was an audible POP as he took her fingers out of his mouth, they locked eyes as he placed it over her clit. He was silent, still, like a hunting animal but his gaze spoke to her, it said “ _ pleasure yourself _ .”

A sigh escaped her throat and Velletta sat up, sinking her fingers into his dark, damp hair. He nuzzled her thigh before he rose up to bury his lips against the center of her body. 

Velletta cried out as pleasure blinded her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer- she needed him closer, she needed him deeper, by all the gods! Her body took on a mind of its own as he licked and teased her with his tongue. He lifted his hands to spread her wider so that his tongue could flick and delve deeper inside her. 

Bucky revelled in the taste of her body. She was wet for him, she wanted him and it made him hungry for her, but more than than, it made him want her to scream his name. 

‘Again- cum again for me, Angel,’ Bucky said breathlessly, using his metal fingers to tease her sensitive pussy. Caressing and thrusting into her as her walls tightened around him. 

Velletta shattered. Her spine arched and a silent cry escaped her lips as she ripped the bed sheet and pressed her face into a pillow. She felt full and empty, hot and cold, her skin was too tight to hold all the sensations raging through her body. 

After a few minutes curled into the mattress. She sat up on her elbows to find Bucky pulling on his boxers. 

Frowning she asked, ‘But what about you?’ 

‘I’m fine,’ he said, smiling slightly as he tossed Velletta her blouse and began pulling on his tac trousers. 

She snatched the top. ‘No, you're not,’ she replied, gesturing pointedly to the huge erection straining against his boxers. 

‘Hey, I said I’m fine-,’ Bucky said sharply then softened slightly. ‘Consider this payback for me being gone all week.’ 

Velletta started off the bed, pulling her blouse on over her head as she did so. ‘You’re not leaving through the window.’

Bucky shrugged as he rested against the window frame, pulling on his boots. ‘The team is in the kitchen, they can’t see me coming out of your room.’ 

Velletta tutted and pointed to the stormy sky. ‘And you can’t go into a lighting storm with a metal arm,’ She snapped impatiently as lightning split the sky. One of the perks of being a Valkyrie was that she could always sense when there was a storm on the way. 

Bucky peered out dubiously at the raging storm. It was a hundred foot sheer metal face that was difficult to climb in the best of conditions, the middle of an electrical storm in howling wind was less than ideal even for the Winter Soldier. 

‘I could crawl through the ceiling, I guess….Wait, what are you doing?’ Bucky asked as Velletta began to throw pillows off the bed. 

‘Making a bed on the floor.’

‘I don’t need pillows,’ Bucky began but corrected himself. ‘And I’m not staying over, it's part of our agreement.’ 

Velletta chose to ignore him. ‘They’re not for you, they are for me. You are sleeping in the bed.’ 

This did not sit right with Bucky one bit, Even the Winter Soldier grumbled.‘Guess again,’ he retorted stubbornly. He paced across the room and tried to snatch a pillow out of her hands but Velletta reared up and jabbed her finger into his chest. 

‘You are my guest, do as you are told!’ she snapped forcefully. 

_ Who taught this girl manners!  _

Losing his temper, Bucky grabbed Velletta around the waist and unceremoniously tossed her onto the mattress, elbowing her over to the far side. 

‘Happy now?’ Bucky asked sarcastically as he snapped off the bedside light. 

**Drabble 8: Memories**

‘Tell me a story,’ Velletta murmured sleepily. Bucky huffed, his hard stomach shuddered slightly under Velletta's cheek

The Avengers had been invited to a party at the White House and as Bucky and Velletta weren't officially members, the invite hadn’t extended to them. Bucky would rather be shot in the head before being forced into a monkey suit and paraded about. Steve had stamped his foot and made noise but to be honest, Bucky had been looking forward to a night with Velletta. No hiding, no being quiet, just spending time together as themselves. 

  
  


They were laid out on the floor of the Kite. Beer bottles, chocolate bar wrappers and pizza boxes littered their sleeping bag. They had rigged up the Kite’s speaker to a 1940’s playlist that Steve had created, it played quietly in the background. 

‘You’re so demanding,’ he huffed lightly, nudging her shoulder. 

She nipped playfully at his naked chest with her teeth. ‘Valkyries do not say please, or repeat themselves.’ 

Bucky mumbles something that sounded close to ‘ _ brat _ ’.

Velletta thought he would ignore her but after a moment of silent contemplation, Bucky sat up, resting his back against the hull of the ship as he began to speak. 

‘We can’t have been more than 8 or 9. In fact I’d just turned 8, my Ma had made me a milk cake with red icing for my birthday that November-’ 

He didn’t know why out of all the things that he’d forgotten, that this one memory had stuck with him in some form or another. Even in the darkest days of being the Winter Soldier, he swore he could still smell the garbage cans rotting in the summer heat. 

‘We lived in this apartment building with lots of other families, Stevie lived two doors down. And there was this old man, he hobbled about on a crutch and had a wooden leg-,’ Bucky’s voice faltered slightly, ‘ and the neighbourhood kids would laugh at him. I would laugh at him. We’d hear him cry out at night through the walls of the apartment. My Ma would pretend not to hear but everyone did. Thin walls. But I still laughed, it was one of the things you did as a kid. And then Stevie caught me laughing- little runt, dragged me by the hair- made me follow Mr Williams, that was the man’s name, made me follow him all the way down to the pawn shop on the corner of Hudson and 1st Street.’ 

‘He was selling his medals.’ Bucky closed his eyes and spoke through clenched teeth, ‘Of all the things I could have remembered, it had to be that.’ 

Velletta covered his hand with hers, squeezing it gently. ‘You see yourself as the man.’ 

Bucky made a noise of noncommittal. ‘What about you?’ 

She shrugged as reached for another slice of pizza. ‘There are no old Valkyries.’ 

Bucky frowned. ‘None. Not even vets?

‘We are taught to die in service-,’ Velletta wiped her mouth on her sleeve as if what she was saying was the most normal thing in the world. ‘To die with honour. Victory or death.’ 

‘Not a lot about living,’ Bucky replied darkly. 

Velletta gave a mock salute with her beer bottle. ‘Or dying for something you no longer believe in.’ 

Bucky was quiet for a moment, studying his metal hand, flexing the fingers into a fist. ‘They never wanted us alive. They just wanted us controlled.’ 

‘Fuck them.’ 

Bucky looks up with surprise. ‘Where did you learn that?’ 

‘Clint.’ Velletta smiled sheepishly. 

Bucky laughed, he actually laughed until his face hurt. ‘Maybe we’ll make a Brooklyn girl out of you yet,’ he managed to choke out as he gasped for air. 

**Drabble 9: Vengeance and Guilt**

“ Hawkins vs the state of New York has been marred amidst protests outside of City Hall. The controversial figure Jonathan Hawkins, former CEO of HawkinsChemicals and New York billionaire was today acquitted of all changes relating to the murder of his daughter. 12 year old Helen was found…’ 

Steve held the door open for Velletta, Sam trailing behind them, as they entered the kitchen. The team barely looked up from where they sat huddled around the tv watching a pretty woman speaking into a microphone. 

‘Clint, could you turn that off please, the papers are full of it,’ Steve said, reaching for the coffee. 

‘The radio too. I can’t go anywhere without hearing that jerk’s name,’ Sam added, accepting the pot of coffee. 

‘He’s a criminal?’ Velletta asked, eyeing the smiling man who was now on the screen. 

He was in his mid 50’s, tall, handsome and had a shiny face like he had been carved out of plastic. The way he pandered to the crowd, waving and smiling as he exited the courtroom made Velletta’s throat tighten. His daughter had been murdered as he had the audacity to smile.

‘Most definitely.’ Tony said, not looking up from where he was sorting his mail. 

‘Then why does he walk free?’ 

‘Ain't that the million dollar question,’ Sam murmured darkly, turning his back to the tv and staring down into his drink. 

Banner detached himself from the group and leaned over the counter top towards them. ‘There have been rumours that he bribed the courts. A man like him has got a lot of influence.’ 

‘But he is guilty?’ Velletta frowned

‘Almost certainly.’ Start chimed in again, still not bothering to look up. 

‘That is up to the courts to decide,’ Steve interjected.

‘Then you must do something!’ Velletta looked around at her friend’s sheepish faces. ‘ You are the Avengers afterall.’ 

The team shifted awkwardly, not meeting her eye. 

** 

Hours later, Valletta sat in the pouring rain. Her muscles were cramping, flecks of sleet made her face sting. An icy wind blew through the Upper East Side, the car horns and nightclubs were quiet tonight, everyone was sheltering against the bitter weather. All except her. 

Velletta’s eyes narrowed as Jonathan Hawkins appeared at the window of his penthouse. He took a sip of whiskey as he looked out at the New York skyline, smiling to himself. 

‘Are you lost?’ she asked, not taking her eyes away from her prey. 

She didn’t need to turn, didn’t need to even ask the question. They both knew that she could sense him well before he had climbed up the fire escape and slithered through the shadows of the rooftop. 

‘I could say the same about you,’ Bucky said quietly. He remained standing, keeping to the shadow of the water tower to her left. 

Velletta shook her wet hair out of her eyes. ‘You should leave. If you're found here questions will be asked.’ They both knew why she was there. 

‘I won't let them find me.’

She let out a low, dark chuckle, her breath rose as mist and was torn away by the wind. ‘I can play the ignorant alien, you on the other hand are an ex-assassin. You cannot be found here.’ 

He moved with grace, low and quick, like a nocturnal predator. Without even disturbing the gravel under his feet, Bucky silently crossed the rooftop so that he crouched next to Velletta, their knees touching. ‘What’s the plan?’ 

‘Don’t ask stupid questions, you know what I’ve got to do.’ 

‘Best get started then.’ He shot her sideways glance, his pale eyes flashing in the neon lights off the city and making his wet hair, which was tied in a low bun at the base of his neck, look shiny like a raven’s wing. In the low light she caught the faintest glint of a smile playing on his lips. 

Velletta hesitated. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? You can always turn back.’ 

‘Another mark against my name won't make much difference,’ Bucky sighed, before smirking at her, ‘Yours, I aint so sure about.’ 

Velletta pulled her balaclava up over her nose and tugged on her leather holster, checking the buckles. ‘I was killing before your grandparents were alive. Don’t patronise me, Dorothy.’ 

‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Angel.’ 

They slipped into Hawkins penthouse, making quick work of the alarm system and the sensors on the windows. 

Gods, what a pitiful excuse for a Midgardian. Jonathan Hawkins was everything she expected. He was a weak, frightened creature, cringing away from his gags and crying when Velletta forced a light into his eyes. 

Nausea rose in Velletta’s throat as Jonathan Hawkin’s begged, begged like a whining child. She felt no pity for him. Staring into the depths of his aura, the only emotion Velletta felt was contempt. 

‘What do you want? I’ll...I’ll give you anything,’ Hawkin’s sobbed, trying to peer into the light so that he could make out their faces. 

Bucky looked completely bored. ‘There’s a pretzel place I know, you ever had a pretzel?’ He asked her, ignoring the man they had bound and gagged. Instead stared at the expensive paintings that were hung on the walls, turning his head this way and that as if to decipher what they were supposed to look like. 

Velletta twirled her knife in her hand, it had been a while since she’d last eaten. ‘No I don-’ 

‘Anything, please! I’ll give you everything. I have money, lots of money...how about ten million, no, twenty million...’Jonathan Hawkins was sweating like a pig in a butcher's shop. His good looks and photo ready smile were nothing as this shivering coward sobbed and begged for his life. 

‘Anything?’ Velletta asked. 

‘Y..es.’

Velletta grabbed a handful of his bleach blonde hair and wrenched his head back. ‘I want you to plead guilty,’ She snarled into his face. 

‘But ...but I didn’t kill her.’ 

Bucky made a noise of amusement, it was dark and bitter. He withdrew a blade from his belt and spun it between his fingers. 

‘The only thing worse than a coward is a liar. And you, Jonathan Hawkins, are both. You murdered your daughter, an innocent to this world. You deserve to meet the end you gave her.’ Velletta’ barely recognised her own voice, it was like venom and filled with loathing. 

‘You don’t have to do this,’ he sobbed, tears streaming down his face, making lines in his fake tan. 

She looked at Bucky then. And in that moment she wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else in the world. Inadvertently Jonathan Hawkins had made her have a perfect moment of crystal clear clarity. “ _ You don’t have to do this _ -” no, she didn’t, Bucky didn’t but they were here anyway because they could be and, of all the places in the world, they had chosen to be here- in the same room as a murder. And yet they were here together. 

  
  


*** 

After posting a written confession and a tape of Jonathan Hawkins signing it to the state attorney's office. They sat by the docks, the two of them dangled their feet from the pier as they watched the sunrise of the East River.

‘No one would have done what you did tonight,’ Velletta said quietly, not looking up from a blob of mustard on her napkin. 

‘I thought you could use the company,’ Bucky replied, shrugging. 

Her throat felt tight, she had to force out the words. She sucked in a lungful of river air. ‘That's my point. You knew why I was there and you came anyway.’ 

‘I’m all kinds of sick.’ 

She swallowed a mouthful of pretzel, the chewy dough took her mind off the growing tension in her belly. There had been a moment in Hawkin’s apartment, when her knife was raised and Bucky’s pale eyes had fixed on her… she couldn’t shake that moment. 

‘You were right though, I don’t need to kill anymore. I got the urge to but in the long run it doesn't help.’ 

‘When you find out what does, will you tell me?’ He replied dryly. 

His stubble was thick, a few strands of silver stood out in the morning sunshine. But as the new sun revealed the new day, Velletta felt like she was seeing him for the first time. Tired for the most part, he wore an old hoodie that was damp at the neck over his tactical wear. But there was something that Velletta couldn’t put her finger on, he looked lighter and his smile came free and easy. 

‘Pretzels and mustard,’ she said, reaching over to nab a bite of Bucky’s sesame pretzel. ‘Tell me about Brooklyn?’ 

He slapped her hand away. ‘Brooklyn is Brooklyn. Buildings, ice creams, hair parlours, car parks...’ 

‘But you speak so fondly of it?’

Bucky spoke with his mouth full. ‘I guess it's more Stevie’s Brooklyn than mine. The Brooklyn I knew as a kid isn’t there anymore,’ Bucky replied sadly. 

Velletta’s eyes softened. ‘Steve is your family, you should consider yourself lucky.’ 

It had always been unspoken between them. Velletta’s months on Earth had shown her all the things that her life had lacked, things that she once thought so normal… it had left a large part of her questioning if she was following the right path. 

A minute passed in silence. A tourist ferry chugged alongside them, churning the water so that it splashed up at their feet. A few children waved from the windows at them, Velletta dutifully waved back. 

Bucky looked out towards the other side of the river. ‘I do have family...I have a niece, she lives in an apartment off Bush Street with her grandkids.’ 

Velletta gasped excitedly and punched his shoulder playfully. ‘You never thought to visit?’

‘We should get back.’ He gets up quickly, too quickly, pointedly ignoring her question. 

‘Whatever for?’ Velletta laughed, tossing the remains of her pretzel over her shoulder and pushed herself to her feet. ‘I want to introduce myself to your niece,’ she teased, ‘I shall go into her home and say ‘hello! I am having sexual relations with your uncle. No need to thank me’.’ 

He turned back, given her a wry smile. ‘You think you’re hilarious, don’ ya?’ 

‘Naturally.’ 

**Drabble 10: Sick**

The team had their heads bent together, speaking in hushed voices and casting anxious looks to Velletta’s door. For the most part, Bucky tried to ignore them as he reached for the coffee pot but Sam caught sight of him with the corner of his eye and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. 

‘Bucky!’ Sam cried as he leaped over the kitchen counter. ‘Buck, buddy, just the Manchurian candidate that we need to see.’ 

‘I’m not interested, Wilson.’ 

Banner stepped past the others and rested against the counter top. ‘It’s Velletta.’ 

Bucky instantly tensed. ‘What about her?’ 

‘She’s…’ Banner began uncomfortably. 

‘Velletta’s got cold,’ Steve interjected, frowning with worry. 

Bucky stared back at their anxious faces. ‘That’s it?’ 

‘You don’t understand man, it's her very first cold- and it's a Valkyrie sized, hell demon of a cold and she’s pissed about it!’ Sam hissed looking traumatised. 

‘But it's just a cold, she’ll be fine.’ 

‘It's not just any cold, it's her first. She has no antibodies to fight it off so she’s feeling the effects of a lifetime's worth of cold viruses.’ Banner took off his glasses to pinch his nose. ‘We’ve made a shot that will help her with the symptoms and a small sedative but, well...look what happened to the first one we tried.’

Following his eyes, Bucky saw a syringe embedded in the ceiling above their heads. 

‘Bunch of pansies,’ Bucky grumbled, grabbing a spare syringe off the counter and a box of orange juice out the fridge. 

Opening the door, he was assaulted by a stuffy wall of hot air. Velletta’s room looked like it had been ransacked by messy buglers and she looked like she’d dressed up like a bag lady. 

Velletta seemed to be wearing every piece of clothing she could find. Shuffling about her room and murmuring feverishly to herself, her cheeks burned red and her hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. 

‘Are those jabbering fish wives still out there?’ She snapped as he stepped over the threshold, her voice like sandpaper and her eyes bloodshot and watery. 

Stevie shot him a- RATHER YOU THAN ME- look as Bucky closed the door behind him. 

Bucky set down the orange juice on the chest of drawers. ‘You look like hell on wheels.’ 

Velletta managed a wistfully, far away kind of smile. ‘Always such a charmer.’ 

Bucky tried to herd her into the corner of the bedroom, but Velletta wasn’t having any of it. Sniffing loudly and wiping her nose on her sleeve, she shuffled around the room, kicking over piles of books and pulling open drawers as if she was looking for something. 

‘Would you sit still for a moment?’ Bucky said impatiently, catching her arm and holding her shoulders till she stood still. Her skin burned under his hand. 

Chuckling raspily and leaning heavily against his side, she rested her sweaty forehead against his neck and pressed a kiss to his neck. Bucky tensed instantly as mischievous hands began to reach for his fly. 

_ Give me strength! _

Catching her hands, he pulled her back, steadying her as she wobbled. ‘No, Angel, we’re not doing that with you like this.’ 

‘We’re not?’ She asked wearily, then let out a heavy sigh of relief, ‘Good cause my head is pounding like a  Gjallarhorn.’ 

‘Why don’t you lie down and try and get some rest?’ Bucky suggested, trying to steer her towards the bed. 

‘I can’t!’ She cried, suddenly fearfully. Velletta held on to his hands and her teary eyes began to dart feverishly around the room. ‘I see things when I close my eyes, they're watching, waiting for me to close my eyes. And they chant, always chanting from the darkness-.’

As she clung to him, trembling and trying with all her might to remain strong, Bucky’s heart broke for her. 

‘You’re hallucinating, Angel, you’re sick,’ he said kindly, brushing his knuckles against her cheek. 

Velletta pushed against his chest. ‘Valkyries do not get sick! You’ve been talking to those trolls!’ she shouted hysterically at the closed door. 

‘You’re acting like a crazy person,’ Bucky snapped with frustration. 

Velletta rounded on him with wild eyes. ‘No, you’re acting like a crazy person!’ And that's when her eyes landed on the syringe that he had tucked into his back jean pocket, all hell broke loose. 

Two things happened at once. Velletta stamped on his foot, leaping over her bed. Bucky managed to snatch the sleeve of Velletta’s dressing gown and reeled her in as fast as she tried to untangle herself from it. With a curse, he threw the jacket around her body, hauled her back against him and wrapped his metal arm around her shoulders. 

He uncapped the syringe with his teeth. ‘This is for your own good.’ 

‘Sorðinn!’ Velletta cried in pain at the top of her lungs, ‘You stabbed me in the ass!’ 

‘You deserved it for actin’ like a brat,’ Bucky snapped back. 

With a snarl, Velletta kicked off the edge of the bed frame, throwing her head back into Bucky’s face. He swore as she wriggled out of his grip and flung open the bedroom door. 

The team watched in stunned silence, too shocked to react, as Velletta hurled herself out the door. But Bucky was too fast, before she could dodge, the blanket was over her head and she was over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 

Kicking and screaming like a banshee, he carried her back to the bedroom and kicked the door closed with his heel. 

‘Should we help?’ Banner asked, grimacing as Velletta shattered something against the wall. 

‘You got a death wish, doc?’ Sam said but grinned devilishly, offering a bowl of popcorn to Nat. 

Bucky tugged the blanket down over her head but kept her arms pinned. ‘Are you done?!’ Bucky snarled down at her, his weight keeping her pressed into the mattress. 

‘Never!’

_ Fine, then _ , Bucky said to himself as he sat heavily on her legs. _ Act like a child, get tret like a child.  _

She raged and squirmed, kicking and swearing until her face was red like a beetroot and her hair was wild.

Little did Velletta know that he'd had to do this with Stevie many times when they were growing up. He hated taking his vitamins and pills that the doctor prescribed him, so it was up to Buck to make sure the lil’ jerk kept up to date with them and most of the time that meant wrestling like pigs in mud. 

After ten minutes of fighting, Velletta had fallen still, panting and exhausted in her feverish state. ‘I can’t sleep-,’ she began quietly, her eyes full of unshed tears, ‘I see things when I close my eyes. Bad things.’ 

‘Do you want me to stay with you?’ he asked, surprising himself. 

Velletta pouted and looked away. ‘If you insist.’ 

Bucky brushed a lock of her sweaty red hair out of her eyes and behind her ear. ‘Do  _ you _ want me to stay?’ He repeated watching her closely. 

Like a stubborn child she hesitated, chewing her lip and sniffing miserably but not meeting his eyes as she nodded. 

Careful to watch for any sudden movements, Bucky eased himself to lay by her side, so that he was propped up on his elbow looking down at her, and loosened the blanket so that she could stretch out. 

After a few moments, Velletta laid her forehead against the cold metal of his arm letting it soothe her skin. ‘Sorry I head butted you,’ she said quietly, reaching up to wipe a smudge of blood from his nose. 

Bucky smiled shyly. ‘Sorry I stabbed you in the ass with a syringe.’ 

He could see the exact moment the drugs began to take effect. Velletta’s breathing deepened and her eyelids began to drop. 

‘Friends?’ She asked in a sleepy voice as her eyes fell shut. 

He pressed his lips against her forehead. ‘More than friends.’ 

**Drabbles 11 : Maps**

The moonlight came through the window, casting a silvery light over the bed. Velletta’s head was resting on Bucky’s stomach, slowly rising and falling as he slept. She had a sheet wrapped around her body, they were watching the moon slowly make its way across the sky. 

Velletta thought of it as their sky, their moon. She would close her eyes during the early evening to wake up for their Midnight DayDream- no hydra, no Decimation, no SHIELD, no heroes and villains- just the two of them and the lonely moon. 

It didn’t count as sleeping together if Velletta was still awake. She watched Bucky doze, letting her eyes lazily study his sleeping form. The muscles in his back dived and pitched, his warm skin pearly white in the moonlight. Each knot of muscles was a mountain, the curve of his spine a valley, scars running over his skin like rivers. Velletta wanted to chart a map over Bucky’s body till she knew it like the back of her hand. 

His face was pressed into the pillow beside her, the sheet bunched haphazardly around his waist. Sweat beaded like dew across his brow from their sexual adventures. 

Velletta had had many sexual partners in her time. Not as many as some Valkyrie and more than her tutors would have liked. There had been a prince of a Castillian Rex planet who had offered her a whole moon if she stayed the night with him. Or there had been the Spice Barron who had offered the Valkyrie High Mother her weight in diamonds if she married him. 

And of course, she had had her lovers, people she had chosen to coupe with. All worthy in their own right. Velletta had no regrets on that score. And yet as she looked down at Bucky’s sleeping face: all the care and anguish lost as he slept dreamlessly. What little magic Velletta had she could give him that, slowly weaving strands into his dreams, chasing away the dark memories. 

And yet as she looked down at his sleeping face, all she could think of was of all the men she had been with in her long life, how Bucky surpassed them in every way and more. 

He had been surprising. Velletta liked surprises. 

**Drabbles 12: Flowers**

Velletta felt Bucky’s lips move against her mouth, curling into that wolfish smile that made her chest tighten. 

‘Is something funny?’ She sighed, hooking her leg over his hip and arching her back. 

His thrusts were deep, intense and constant but unrelentingly slow, even though she begged. He worked his hips, rolling his spine, ploughing into Velletta until they were so entwined Velletta didn’t know where he started and she began. 

“It’s Sunday,” he’d said when he surprised her in the middle of her midday shower, breaking their rules. “Sundays are for lazing in bed and-” his grin, that wolfish, dangerous grin that could have charmed Frigga from her hall, ‘are enjoying each other's company.” 

His mouth was hot and hungry, his tongue traced every inch of her neck, her breasts, her heat but it was Velletta’s mouth that he enjoyed the most. 

‘Your lips are so soft,’ Bucky breathed, then hesitated propping his head up on his elbow so that he could look down at her. His dark hair caged his face, flushed and rosey from their efforts. ‘Your a warrior, sharp like a knife. Everything about you is tough-,’ Bucky ran his thumb over her bottom lip. ‘-but your lips are like rose petals.’ 

Adorably her nose wrinkled as spoke, ‘Rose petals?’

Bucky chuckled softly, thrusting deep again until she let out a low moan of satisfaction. ‘It’s a type of flower.’ 

She fixed him with a stubborn glare, locking her ankles around his back to grind mercilessly against him. ‘I am not a flower,’ she pretended to growl, but her eyes twinkled mischievously.

He gritted his teeth and shuddered, barely able to hold himself back. ‘It has deadly thorns-,’ he hissed through his teeth as she raked her fingers through his hair. 

_ Ridiculous man.  _ She scoffed but Velletta smiled nonetheless. ‘The maidens must love your sly words.’ 

His sharp teeth nipped at her hand. ‘I would never use a line on you-,’ using his superior strength, Bucky scooped her up into his arms and sat back on his thighs so that she rode him, ‘you wouldn’t fall for it anyway.’ 

Velletta hissed and threw back her head as Bucky thrust viscously into her, both their bodies tensed, coiled tight, ready to finish against each other. 

**

‘Would you stop!’ the intern grumbled.

‘Hey, it's my package to give...’

‘Agents Clarkson, Mendez, do you have something for us?’ Steve asked in a tight tone making the two squabbling interns visibly pale. 

Clarkson hesitated in the doorway of the living room, looking nervously at his feet. ‘Yessir...um, this package arrived at the front door and I’m supposed to bring them up but I didn’t-’ 

‘Who’s it for?’ Steve asked, trying not to sound impatient. 

‘Umm-’ the man fumbled a slim rectangular box which he had tucked under his arm. ‘Miss Velletta.’ 

There was a stunned silence around the living room as Velletta frowned and lowered her book. ‘Me?’ 

‘Been buying stuff on late night QVC again?’ Sam asked sarcastically, looking up from his laptop and cup of coffee. 

Accepting the package from Agent Clarkson, Velletta placed it on the dining table as Steve and Sam watched. She pulled away the ribbon and let the box fall open. Laying in a shroud of tissue paper was one lone burgundy flower, so dark that it was almost black.

‘A flower?’ She asked, picking it out of the box. 

Sam let out a wolf whistle. ‘Its a rose and no note, Vel, it looks like you’ve got yourself a secret admirer.’ 

Velletta’s hands closed reflexively, she flinched as blood began to blossom from the palm of her hand. 

Steve tutted as he gently took her hand and held it up to the light. ‘That’s strange, they don’t usually leave the thorns on.’

Sam shrugged, losing interest and turning back to his laptop. ‘Beautiful yet-’ 

‘Deadly.’ A small knowing smile grew across her face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank for taking the time to read. If you like Velletta and Bucky, please comment and kudos x


	13. Phase 2: Chapter 13: Name the beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I’ve been irresponsible-,’she said impatiently under her breath. ‘Too distracted. I should have been concentrating on my duties as an emissary to Earth and taking down Decimation. As much as you are a pleasant distraction-,’ she looked over her shoulder at Bucky, ‘you are a distraction.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go... Basically the scene setting up the non-stop action from here to the end. There are twists and turns and, probably, a few tears. 
> 
> Stay tuned.

_ “  _ _ De igne cinis _

_ Duo enim maledice ac maligne, _

_ Una enim fractionis, _

_ Malebolge tepidum vigili…” _

_ ‘Asset, kneel and be cleansed.’ The voice was cruel and cold, one she recognised all too well. She wanted to cringe away and hide, slam her eyes shut and scream inside her head to block out the noise. But she couldn’t...she couldn’t leave him.  _

_ His eyes were empty as he obeyed, kneeling inside a circle of runes and automatically stretching out his hands so that a set of scurrying attendants could shackle his wrists to the floor.  _

_ Flinty eyes, hard and sharp and full of venom, narrowed with malice. He enjoyed seeing his power over the Asset, a man who was forced to obey mindlessly.  _

_ No...never mindless… She wished he was mindless, Velletta wished he were brain dead, a corpse with no soul, or beating heart or blinking eyes. She could hear his inner voice screaming inside the Asset’s head, pleading and impotent.  _

_ ‘NOT HERE! PLEASE, PLEASE...NOT THIS…’  _

_ Desperately she reached for him. Gathering up the tiny specs of magic she still had, pushing them into his mind: lapping waves, apple orchards, moonlight, hot summer wind- anything she could think of- anything to take his mind away from this place, this horror.  _

_ ‘Watch closely, little sparrow,’  _

_ A knife, stiletto thin and razor sharp, gleaming in the flickering candle light, the Asset’s eyes widened- human reaction, fear, pain- their eyes fixed on each other as the knife was pulled across his throat- her throat- her blood spilled down her tactical gear on to the runes beneath her feet. Gasping for air, she choked, blood spluttering over the ground in front of her as she fell forward on to the ground… _

_ Bucky looked down at her with pleading eyes, tubes and chains straining as if he was trying to reach for her but helplessly, all he could do is look on in horror as her life gushed out of the gaping hole in her neck.  _

Velletta vomited into the sink, bracing herself against the counter top, trying to contain the sounds of her retching. She’d barely got out of the bedroom in time, careful not to disturb Bucky, she’d sprinted across the kitchen to find the nearest vessel. 

Slumping back against the fridge, cold sweat coating her body like blood and adrenaline still running through her skin, Velletta tried to steady her breathing. 

One month...They had one month to find out what Decimation were up to, to find the artefacts, to fix the world, to get her home, to… there wasn’t enough time. They would lose, her friends would die, the world would burn and Bucky would die...and it would be all her fault. 

Kicking off the fridge, she washed out her mouth from the facet and paced to Stark’s workroom. 

**

‘Bad dream?’ Bucky asked, resting against the doorframe of the workroom. 

It was a strange sensation to wake and find the bed empty. He knew she couldn’t have gone far, the bedsheets were still warm and hadn’t bothered to turn on the light. Distantly Bucky remembered listening to her breathing, the steady rise and fall of her chest lulling him into a deep sense of calm. He’d felt her in his mind, lights dancing off water and then he was gone...sweet, dreamless oblivion. 

Velletta ignored his questions, instead continued to make feverish notes on the whiteboard in slanted, messy handwriting. 

‘I’ve been irresponsible-,’she said impatiently under her breath. ‘Too distracted. I should have been concentrating on my duties as an emissary to Earth and taking down Decimation. As much as you are a pleasant distraction-,’ she looked over her shoulder at Bucky, ‘you  _ are _ a distraction.’

Bucky smirked, ‘ I didn’t hear you complaining last night.’ 

The way he stood, his cool eyes devouring her, taut muscles straining against his gym shorts and tshirt; he made her mouth water. Velletta was in half tempted to rise to his challenge, kiss the smirk off his face and pull a gasp from his teasing lips as her hand sank under the waistband of his shorts. But now was not the time. 

‘Remember the rules,’ she chided gently, turning back to the board. 

‘Never been one for rules myself,’ he said dryly but took a seat. She knew that if she turned round now and met his eyes, they would be hot and smouldering. Velletta tried her best to focus. 

‘Does the name Dr Nash mean anything to you?’ 

Bucky’s voice hardened considerably. ‘In passing but that was enough.’ 

Velletta turned, twirling the whiteboard pen in her fingers. ‘What type of doctor was he?’ 

‘A chemist, I think.’ Bucky frowned, ‘I thought you didn’t know any names?’ 

Velletta chewed the inside of her cheek, staring off into the distance as she spoke. ‘There was a woman and man in my cell painting fresh symbols on the walls. The women addressed him by accident, ‘ _ Dr Nash, can you pass the _ …’ It came to me in a dream.’ 

Bucky braced his elbows on his knees, sitting forwards. ‘When was this?’ 

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. ‘Years, decades ago, maybe.’ 

‘Years bleed into one, I know,’ Bucky said tightly. ‘Have you looked up the name in the phonebook?’ 

‘ _ Huhmm _ ,’ Friday politely cleared her voice. ‘May I suggest, Mr Barnes, that I run the name through my database. It might be a bit faster.’ 

‘Sure,’ Bucky replied, unsure. 

Velletta tried to give an encouraging smile as she walked passed, resting her hand on his chest. ‘Coffee?’ 

He squeezed her hand in response. 

Neither of them would get anymore sleep that night. 

**

‘Dr Markus Nash, won two awards for advances in theoretical chemistry from Harvard University in 1948. Worked for in intelligence research-,’ Friday’s voice droned on, listing the man’s achievements. 

_ His achievements _ , Velletta thought with venom. Amongst his achievements that Friday listed weren’t the years of pain and suffering that he’d put them through. Her eyes lingered on Bucky, he stood apart from the others, his spine ramrod stiff, apart from the muscle spasming in his jaw, his face was stony and empty.

‘Which intelligence agency?’ Steve asked, interrupting Friday’s briefing. 

The team were assembled in Stark’s work room. The air was thick with frustration and anxiety. In less than a month, Decimation's calendar would finish its countdown; the what, why and how alluding some of the best minds in the world, some of Earth's strongest warriors. Velletta didn’t need her Sight to know that nerves were running high. 

‘CIA from 1947 to 1953, then the World Health Organisation in…’

‘The WHO?’ Banner interjected, frowning, ‘what would they need a theoretical chemist for?’ 

‘In the project folder, it says that Dr Nash was responsible for gathering equipment essential to research involved in Project Paperclip. He travelled to Russia, Austria, Italy, picking up specialist equipment left by the Nazis.’ 

Stark added snarky, ‘Sounds like a good cover story.’ 

‘What are Nazis?’ Velletta asked quietly in Sam’s ear. 

He smiled in a way that meant he wanted to make fun of her, but glancing at the serious faces around the room, he simply shrugged, ‘Real bad dudes, started a fight with half the world. It was dicey for a couple of years but we got em’ in the end.’ 

Friday’s cool voice continued, the AI flicking through images and reports on the holographic reader. ‘In 1974 he left the WHO and was found dead in his home in the Bronx by his son five years later.’ 

Steve crossed his arms over his broad chest. ‘Where’s the son now?’ 

Friday shifted through various screens until she halted on a police report, just as Natasha rapped her knuckles against the glass door. She appeared in the doorway wearing a pair of jeans, what looked like Steve’s hoodie and a self satisfied grin that said she’d done herself proud. Behind her was a woman in her fifties, who had a homely round face, short curly black hair. She looked around like her eyes were about to pop out of her head. Holding her arm in a peculiar way around her stomach, a pair of pretty brown eyes shot between Steve, Sam,Bucky, Tony, Vision- double take, and then back to Steve. 

‘Good morning chumps, enjoying your lecture?’ Natasha said, leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe. 

‘Velletta has found a potential lead to follow up on,’ Steve replied evenly, not wanting to rise to her bait. 

‘That’s-that’s gre-at-,’ Natasha replied, pretending to yawn. Steve did not look impressed. 

‘Alright, enough of the stand up routine-,’ Tony propped his feet up on the desk, getting a disapproving look from Dr Banner. ‘You gonna tell us what you found or are we going to have to guess.’ 

Smiling drawly, Natasha gently pushed her guest into the room. ‘This, ladies and gentleman, is our very own expert in all things demon or demon world related. I give you, Dr Kimberly Glass.’ 

The woman, Dr Glass, gave a nervous little wave and she smiled but it came out looking more like a grimace. 

‘What are you doctor of?’ Banner said politely, the first one to get out of his seat to shake her hand. 

‘Social work,’ Dr Glass replied quickly. 

_ ‘Social work? _ ’ Dr Glass winced slightly as surprised looks spread around the room. 

Still Natasha remained smug, she was smiling like a cheshire cat. ‘She’s the real deal, Cap.’ 

‘How do you-’ Steve began but for a shrill voice suddenly cutting through the air. 

‘Oh my goshohmygosh!’ A tiny voice gasped out from within Dr Glass’ clothing. Her heavy jumper squirmed and wriggled.

Tony fell back off his chair, Sam made a movement as if to jump on to the counter top, Velletta grabbed the neck of a test beaker and Bucky took a step towards her. What popped out the front from the neck of her jumper was a cross between a garden gnome and a monkey.

Like a blur of grey stone, one moment it was peeking out from within the jumper, the next it had sunk its hands into the ceiling and was swinging on a pair of long arms in front of Steve’s face. It had tiny little wings, gnarled horny hands and squashed up face like a pig. 

‘You can call me Uma, Captain America,’ it chirped happily, staring intently into Steve’s face with a pair of beady black eyes as it swung back and forth. 

To his credit Steve schooled his face to not look alarmed, his eyebrows had shot towards his hairline and he kept a wary eye on the sharp taloned feet that flashed dangerously close everytime the creature swung forward. ‘Is that your name?’ 

The creature blew a wet raspberry. ‘My clan name is Ailuin Elamenor of the Stone Heads, but that's a mouthful. I prefer Uma. I like saying it, Uma, U-MA.’ 

‘You’re a gargoyle troll,’ Velletta gasped out, taking a step towards the creature so that she could peer at her. ‘I thought you were just myths.’ 

Twirling on her arm, Uma turned and gave Veletta the once over with her beady eyes. ‘Nah-uh, Uma 100% red blooded troll goodness.’ 

‘Dr Glass, please enlighten us,’ Natasha suggested helpfully. 

‘Well, it looks like I got here just in time,’ Dr Glass said, pointing at the police report hovering on Friday’s display. ‘You do not want to be messing with this guy.’ 

Uma leaped into Dr Glass’ arms and perched herself on the woman’s shoulder as it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘Nah-uh, that man is bad, bad, bad.’ 

‘You said it, Uma,’ Dr Glass said, affectionately patting the gargoyle on the head. 

‘Okay.’ With a sigh, Tony pushed himself to his feet. ‘For people who very much live in the normal- hotdog and beers- no demons- type of world, tell us what we need to know cause we’ve got less than a month…’ 

‘What's in less than a month?’ Dr Glass asked. 

The team shared a series of strained looks. How the hell could anyone explain...well, where would you begin? 

Sam stepped up to the plate. ‘About a hundred years ago, those two trouble makers-,’ he pointed at Velletta and Bucky, ‘-got themselves involved with a group calling themselves Decimation. Decimation were working with…’ 

‘Hydra, yeah, I know,’ Dr Glass interjected, rolling her sleeves up and turning to the whiteboard that still showed the police report. ‘This man is the son of a well known alchemist, Dr Markus Nash-’

Tony mouthed the word -ALCHEMY- incedulously. 

‘-His son, Brandon Nash, AKA The Oracle, supplies drugs to Decimation and demon hotspots up and down North America. He also runs the Brimstone Club down in Harlem.’ 

‘Brimstone Club?’ Vision cocked his head, ‘Isn’t that a little on the nose?’ 

‘What type of drugs is he running?’ Steve asked, stony faced. 

Dr Glass shrugged her shoulders, making Uma sink her gnarly hands into her hair for stability. ‘Mandrake, belladonna, vervain, hellebore, nothing classed as dangerous to humans but if you know how to prepare it and what incantations to use.’ 

‘Okay, well, thats sounds like a good place to start looking. Friday, get us eyes on the Brimstone Club, please,’ Steve said to the AI, before turning back to Dr Glass. ‘When we sacked a Decimation base we found a calendar which was counting down to something.’ 

Dr Glass thought for a moment, biting her lip. Uma whispered in her ear and the two conferred quietly with each other as the group watched in silence. ‘On 20th of June, we have the Summer Solstice which is the longest day of the year. That's not normally very significant but then a couple of days after we’ll be having the first Harmonic Convergence for four thousand years.’ She hesitated biting her nail, her voice ladened with doom. ‘And that...that could be a shit show. Especially if Decimation has got their hands on a Higher Demon.’ 

She moved without thinking, Dr Glasses words heavy in her ears as she grabbed Steve’s drawing of Black Tom and shoved it into the women’s hands. 

‘What is he?’ Velletta's voice sounded thin in her ears. 

The reaction was instantaneous. Dr Glass sucked in a harsh breath of air, her face becoming a mask of pain. Uma reared back hissing, pairing a set of sharp, jabbed teeth and darting underneath Dr Glass’ jumper. 

Her hands trembled as she accepted the picture. ‘This ...His name is Thanatos,’ she managed to choke out, her face white as a sheet under her dark hair. 

‘The Greek God of Death?’ Banner frowned, the team were still gawking. ‘What? I have more interests than maths, you know.’ 

‘Wash your mouth out,’ Tony retorted childishly. 

You would have missed it if you blinked. All eyes were on Dr Glass, Tony and Steve murmured, Vision and Wanda remained quiet lost in their own heads. But Velletta didn’t need to look up to feel him. He moved like a shadow, no one noticed, with an assassin's grace Bucky had made his way across the room to stand next to Velletta. 

She could feel the heat of his hand as it rested against the counter top, inches from her own. There was a pit of fear yawning between them, Velletta felt the void inside Bucky, a cold blizzard raging in his chest. Helpless, all she could do was push her mind towards his and this small sense of closeness. 

‘Are you saying he looks like Thanatos?...Or that he is Thanatos, as in the god?’ Steve asked delicately. 

Dr Glass steadied herself. ‘I am saying that this Thanatos the god, he is death incarnate. Purebred, 100% Higher Demon sent straight from the depths of Hell.’ 

‘How do you know all of this?’ Everyone jumped as a deep voice called from the outer hallway. Fury came striding in, flanked by Agent Hill, his eye flashed with irritation. ‘Agent Romanov, I hope you have a good reason for bringing a civilian into a restricted facility.’ 

To her credit Dr Glass did not back down under Fury’s harsh scrutiny. ‘My sister, _ that's how _ . She sold her soul to a demon so that her beau would come home safe from the Vietnam War. Funny thing was, Helen was killed in a car accident two days later and Johnny never made it out of the jungle.’ She took a step closer to Fury and pushed the picture into his hands. ‘ It might have taken most of my life but I know how to fight the bad demons and help the good ones who find themselves in this realm.’ She gestured to Uma who was busy tearing up a notebook and eating the paper. ‘And Decimation is as bad as they come, and if they have a god of death on their side…’ 

‘Would it make much difference if I told you they had my blood-,’ Velletta interrupted, all eyes fell to her, she stared straight not allowing herself to look away from Dr Glass less she lost her courage. ‘My Valkyrie blood.’ 

In a flurry of limbs and wool, Uma leaped from Dr Glass’ side onto the counter top, sending test tubes and canisters flying as her horny feet scrambled along. 

Fury remained still as a statue, not flinching. Hill’s hand rested on her hip but apart from that, she too was unmoved by the gargoyle as it ran up to Velletta, burying its face in her shirt. 

‘They smell like home,’ Uma squealed happily, looking back at Dr Glass. ‘The Asgardian and shiny man, they smell like Hell.’ 

‘You are an Angel of the Old World,’Dr Glass breathed, her eyes flicked from Velletta to Bucky and back. 

‘The last one, actually,’ Velletta said mildly. 

‘ _ “Angel of the Old World”,  _ How do you know that saying?’ Bucky asked tightly, his voice more of a low growl than real words. 

Velletta wanted to reach out to him, place her hand on his arm and soothe him, but all she could do was send the feel of clean sheets and the scent of shower gel which they had soaped into their entwined bodies this morning. 

‘Everyone knows it. “ _ Man who lost and gained, Angel of the Old world,”...’  _

Velletta felt sick as the women repeated the words. Blood pounded in her ears and she heard Bucky’s metal hand tighten on the counter top. 

To her credit Dr Glass looked sickened as she spoke. ‘It is the mantra of the Vexilla Inferni, a group of demons based on Earth who want to bring about the end of the world.’ 

" _ Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni _ ", those guys?’ Natasha asked incredulously. 

Grimly, Dr Glass nodded in reply. 

Steve kicked off from the countertop restlessly, ‘Where are they based?’ 

Dr Glass chewed her cheek and turned back to the readout. ‘The Brimstone Club.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankyou for reading. Please kudos and comment x


	14. Phase 2: Chapter 14: The Brimstone Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Bucky straightened, he felt his heart try and leap into his mouth. Jesus. H. Roosevelt Christ on a bike!...Yep, he could see why Steve had kicked up a fuss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo this chapter is long and intense and ...yeah, it got away from me.

It was raining like the start of the wet season on the jungle planet of Gomia. Heavy drops fell from the sky like bullets during the night and had yet to stop. Rain tapped incessantly against the windows and gave the air a pleasing chill. 

The weather wasn’t the only thing dampening the spirits. The mission, the only lead that they had...the only way to stop the end of the world rested on tonight's plan. 

Velletta could feel the tension, thick and dense, in the air as she sat down at the breakfast table. . 

Tony pretended not to see her for a moment, peeking over the corner of his datapad. His knee bounced, he shifted in his seat while Velletta pointedly ignored his fidgeting. 

Finally he gave up, he sighed theatrically and set his chin on his hand. ‘Did my ears deceive me or was someone playing hide the pickle last night at 2am...so _ violently _ you woke up half the building. Velletta, darlin’ I am looking at you.’ 

She would not pander to this insolence! She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her flustered! They had maybe...maybe gone too far last night. She couldn’t help it, after the meeting with Dr Glass and Uma, the team had broken off and set to their assigned tasks. But the discussions of the day, Decimation and now the Brimstone Club, Bucky and Velletta needed release. 

Velletta closed the door to her bathroom to find Bucky stood by the window. His face was tight and pensive as the rain continued to tap against the glass. 

‘You were slow today,’ he said in a way of greeting. 

She tugged the towel from her head and raked her fingers through her wet shoulder length hair. ‘And you were more annoying than usual.’ 

‘You’ve always got a smart remark, haven’t you,’ Bucky retorted quickly, but not unkindly. 

‘Am I supposed to say no?’ 

Bucky hesitated, taking one more look at the rain before sitting on the edge of the bed and studying the toe of his boot. ‘I was distracted.’ 

‘Oh?’

‘I just couldn’t get over how…’ his voice fell away, dying in his throat. 

Velletta hated moments like this. Hated not being able to use her Sight to see what was going on inside of him. She hated not knowing how to make him feel better. 

Lamely, she sat down beside him on the bed, towel still tucked under her arms. ‘Cat got your tongue?’ 

‘Yeah, something like that,’ he grumbled stubbornly, not meeting her eye. 

Velletta brushed a strand of dark hair away from his face and tucked it behind his ear. ‘You can tell me anything Buck, out of everyone, I will understand.’ 

He chewed his lip for a moment as if debating with himself but then sat back on his elbows, stretching out on the bed with a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t like this plan. It feels too risky. Too… I don’t know.’ 

‘You’re worried about Steve?’ 

‘And Natasha, and Wilson… ‘ he turned to her then, his pale eyes scanning over the planes of her face, ‘...and you.’ 

His warm breath against her cheek made her skin tingle, she continued lazily combing his hair with her fingers. ‘Me?’ 

‘Yeah,’ he nudged her cheek playfully with his nose. ‘I’ve got used to you.’ 

Velletta chuckled. ‘ “Used to me”, is that what you earthlings call it?’ 

He looked so vulnerable as he studied her face. 

Bucky felt adrift. He wanted to tell her...Christ! He didn’t know what he wanted to tell her but he couldn’t escape the feeling that once she stepped out the door tomorrow and onto the Quinjet he would never see her again. 

He mirrored her movements, brushing her hair away from her face. His hands lingered, drawing a line from her mouth, down her neck to where it settled against her collar bone. They let a heartbeat pass between them, a myriad of unspoken things that they were to each other; friends, colleagues, saviours, victims, prisoners, lovers- all these and more Bucky tried to put into his touch. 

And Velletta heard- in her own way. She leaned back against the mattress, hands grasping the fabric of his shirt. She needed to feel him. They needed each other. 

At first it was gentle, unhurried, Bucky’s lips slowly moving against her own until she felt like her eyes would roll back in her head. Luxuriously soft, his mouth was warm but his harsh stubble drew a moan from her lips as he kissed his way down her neck. 

Her moan, her voice, there was something so sinful and tender in those gentle pleas that always sent Bucky over the edge. _ Everything _ ...he would give her everything and more... 

Velletta threw open her window and rode Bucky on the floor of her bedroom as the spring rain drenched them. Hissing and singing over their bodies, cold and hot and wet, every drop against their naked skin. After being starved of sensation for so long, it was like a wave crashing over them. 

Bucky teased her all night, stringing and coaxing her pleasure out until she wanted to burst but at the last moment withdrew, pulling out of her just so that he could watch the way her cold, wet skin shivered under his touch. He grinned wolfishly as she begged him, rising up on her knees and combing the wet hair out of his face.

She’d kissed his eyes, his nose, bottom lip- feverishly, desperate for the bliss that he held captive. Finally, she came to the end of her patience. Eyes flashing dangerously, Bucky’s were already hooded in pleasure as Velletta dragged her tongue down his stomach and...

Velletta slowly cocked her eyebrow and smiled slyly at Stark. ‘The average Midagrdian man is quite fragile. If it were me, the cries caused by his broken pelvis and crushed femur would have woken up the whole building.’ 

Tony tutted impatiently. ‘ I do believe that you are being facetious,’ he turned to Steve who is just trying to enjoy his morning coffee in peace. ‘Nanny, tell Xena to take the bait!’ 

‘Keep your nose out of other people's business, Stark. It wasn’t that loud.’ 

Velletta looked up from her breakfast. ‘Just a quarter of the building then?’ Velletta asked dryly, the corners of her mouth curling impishly. 

‘Don’t encourage him,’ Steve smirked. 

**

The day had gone too quickly. There wasn’t enough time! Not enough room in his civilian clothing for all his weapons, not enough chances to speak to Velletta alone… the day had simply slipped through his fingers until the Team restlessly waited for a few stragglers in the locker room. 

He didn’t need Velletta’s Sight or Sam’s empathy to know that the Team was anxious. Jesus, even Romanov kept pacing. Steve was worst of all, he could remember missions with the Howlin’ Commandos where Steve had spent most of the night hurling his guts up only to appear with a beaming smile the next morning. It was all for show, and Bucky was one of the few people who could see right through it. 

‘Should we run through the plan one more time?’ Dr Glass asked around nervously. 

She’d taken to compulsively stroking the ears of her stone cat thing...Gargoyle, had Velletta called it? Anyway the thing was purring under her hand, curling its sharp claws into the wool of Dr Glass’ cardigan. 

‘Let’s wait until everyone’s present and correct first,’ Steve replied, supplying Dr Glass with his best reassuring smile. 

‘Yes, quite right, I’m just so nervous-,’ she gave a slightly hysterical chuckle, ‘I’ve never done anything like this. All my research has been through observation, study…’ 

‘You’re doing fine, Kimberly, just as long as the communicators hold we’ve got more than enough back up if anything goes wrong.’ 

Ah yes, the communicators.  _ Spooky, voodoo whoodoo, magic ass,. _ ... It didn’t sit right with Bucky that they were going in without earwigs. He understood that they needed to keep a low profile but relying on runic stones felt like a gamble he wasn’t willing to take. The heavy pendant necklace felt like a weight around his neck, pressing uncomfortably against his skin. 

And then he felt her- A presence, flickering like the crest of a wave over his shoulder. He wanted to look around, but couldn’t. He wanted to press her body against his chest, breathe in her scent, centre himself around her- but he couldn’t. Numbly, Bucky readjusted the dagger he had strapped to his calf. 

‘Velletta, good, glad you’re here…’ Steve’s voice died in his throat as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs as his eyes took in Velletta’s outfit for the first time. ‘NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT!’ He declared dangerously, whirling at Romanov. ‘Natasha, this is not funny. She cannot go out dressed like…’ 

Bucky’s knuckles turned white and the hydraulics in his metal fist creaked as he gripped the tongue of his boot. He could not look up, he could not draw attention, what he would give...

Natasha tried to look innocent. ‘I had nothing to do with this, Velletta picked that out herself,’ she gave Velletta a nod of approval. ‘ And I must say, you work that!’ 

Steve pointedly ignored Natasha, turning back to Velletta who watched him with mild amusement. He looked pained as he kept his eyes fixed on her face, as if he had a stiff neck. ‘Velletta, clubs aren’t...you can’t wear that-’ 

Sam chose that moment to return from the Quinjet and burst into the locker room. ‘Damn, Vel! You look fine, and by fine, I mean smokin’-’ 

Steve made a -YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN- gesture. 

‘As a matter of fact, Steve, I believe that this is the current fashion for -’ Velletta made air quotes, ‘a club’, and as the point of this exercise is for me to stand out just enough to be noticed and but not enough to draw attention to myself, then I think this costume will suffice.’ 

Bucky heard the buzz of Tony’s heart before he appeared in the doorway, already dressed in his Ironman suit, he pretended to look bored as he surveyed them drawlly. ‘Glad the Brady Bunch are ready to roll- Vel, glad you put that Teen Queen magazine to good use, lovin’ the dubs.’ 

Surely, there were enough of them now… no one would notice. 

As Bucky straightened, he felt his heart try and leap into his mouth.  _ Jesus. H. Roosevelt Christ on a bike!... _ Yep, he could see why Steve had kicked up a fuss. 

Velletta was wearing a scrap of metallic cloth fastened around her neck, leaving her entire back and shoulders exposed like a field of fresh snow, and rested just- just on the top of her thighs. A pair of perilously high heels made her toned legs look mile high but it was her eyes… lined with black lashes and highlighted with green glitter, they shined out of her face, surrounded with a riot of reddish curls; they seemed to seduce and mock at the same time. 

For a fraction of a second, their eyes met across the locker room. Bucky could hear his blood pounding in his ears...Velletta’s painted red lips curled a fraction as if to say- WELL, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT….

‘Where will you hide your weapon?’ He asked mildly but his voice sounded a little too loud. 

His face was slightly hidden in shadow but she knew him too well. Even without using her Sight, she could sense every shift, every hesitation, every flare that went through him. She knew him enough to hear the amusement, frustration and hunger in his tone. His pale eyes flashed in the fluorescent lights as they roved over her form critically- as if she were a fortress he was assessing for weakness. 

Velletta rolled her shoulder slightly, the metallic fabric caught the light. ‘My body is a weapon but if you must know-’ with a sly smile, she turned to the side and lifted her arm above her head- showing the side of her breast nestled under the fabric. With a flick of her wrist and flash of metal, Velletta pulled out a razor sharp karambit. 

The knife looked like a dinosaur claw but meaner. It had a hoop on one end made out of carved bone, Velletta spun it expertly around her fingers as the deadly blade hissed through the air. Then with a subtle flash of movement, it returned to its hiding place in a holster strapped against her ribs. 

‘Fine,’ Steve said with resignation, ‘Now that we’re all here, Dr Glass, shall we run through the plan.’ 

Dr Glass set down a portable display device on a bench and shooed Uma off her lap so that she could stand. Fastening her hands behind her back in a business-like manner, she addressed the team, ‘This is the Brimstone Club, one of New York’s finest den of iniquity. At first glance it looks like your run of the mill String Fellows or Saturday Night Fever, but behind the beaded curtain…’ 

As she spoke the display changed, following the schematics of the building which showed a large dance hall to a series of smaller rooms and cellars towards the back of the building. 

‘The back rooms are used by demons who have made a permanent home in this realm. Among other things, they will feed off the humans that frequent the main club. Not all of them are bad-.’ 

‘Yeah!’ Uma snapped her claws sassily. 

‘But if they are at the Brimstone Club, odds are they aren’t there for the karaoke. The runic pendants you are wearing will keep you connected and will mean we can track you inside the spells protecting the club.’ 

Bucky was only half listening...Demons… A small, dead part of him was fascinated, supernatural beings, trolls, gargoyles, banshees, wendigo...he’d poured over the dossier and memorised all the strange and wonderful faces. But then there had been questions- soul eaters, mind flayers, cursed, the damned and ...the  _ Man who lost and gained, Angel of the Old world.  _ They were mixed up in this mess and no closer to finding the answers. 

Steve stood up, clearing his throat. ‘We’ll attack on two fronts. Velletta, your target is Brandon Nash, AKA the Oracle. Try and get him alone, get him talking. Even if he doesn't say anything useful, draw his attention long enough for the others to get to the back rooms and plant listening devices. Buck and Sam will be your eyes and ears.’ 

‘I say that I have escaped from the Avengers, that I am trying to find a way back into Decimation,’ Velletta said, barely suppressing a shiver. 

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. ‘That’ll never work, they won’t buy it.’ 

Tony snorted. ‘Sure they will-,’ he gestured at Velletta, counting off on his fingers, ‘Stockholm Syndrome, alien planet, alien trying to phone home. It's not that great of a leap.’ 

‘I have never been to Stockholm,’ Velletta mumbled quietly, unsure whether she should speak up. 

Steve tried to forge on, ‘Nat, Clint, you will be trying to lure out a hungry demon, get them talking if you can but-’ 

‘I know, I know. Be careful,’ Natasha said impatiently. 

‘I was going to say try not to kill them too painfully but be careful as well.’ 

‘Why do we gotta be the honeypots?’ Clint pretended to grumble under his breath. 

‘Wanda and Vision will monitor the fire exits from above and I will be listening to communications with Agent Hill and Tony in an apartment across the street.’ 

Tony made an impatient noise. ‘Tell me again why we can’t just go in guns blazing?’ 

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Because we don’t know if they are storing Angel Fire on the premises or how many civilians they will have present.’ 

‘So-,’ Vision spoke for the first time that afternoon, ‘we’re going into this not knowing who or what we might be facing?’ 

Grimly Steve nodded. ‘That's about the sum of it but we’ve got no choice.’ 

**

Her hatred for Midgardians intensified tenfold as yet another intoxicated human spilled a drink on her shoes. 

The ‘music’ if you could call it that, boomed around the darkened room. Too hot, too crowded with foul smelling, obnoxious youths who insisted on trying to shout above the music. For any person in their right mind it would have been a full sensory overload. And yet, Velletta wasn’t in her right mind, she hadn’t been for a long time. 

With a bitter tasting drink in her hand, she weaved her way through the crowd. A few human males chanced flirty looks in her direction. Their eyes made her skin crawl. 

She knew that somewhere amongst the mass of writhing bodies Sam and Bucky were keeping watch but looking around, she was adrift in a sea of people. Compulsively, she reached for the pendant that was hidden under her dress. 

Squeezing the pendant, she cast out the thought, ‘ _ Any movement _ ?’ 

The pendant vibrated as Sam responded, ‘ _ Nothing yet, but we have our eyes peeled _ .’ His melodic voice echoing within her head. 

A few months ago it would have been disconcerting, but now, as she was used as bait to lure a swarm of sharks, it felt reassuring. 

With her back to the wall, she scanned the vacant faces; smiling, laughing drunkenly as they bobbed and grinded to the music. What Midgardians called ‘dancing’ was frankly little more than dry humping. 

‘Hey, Baby, how’s your night going?’ He was tall and well built, tottering on his feet slightly as he came to rest next to Velletta, leaning against the wall for support. 

‘It is going,’ she replied, looking past him into the crowd. For a split second she thought she saw a flash of silver but it was gone before she could blink.

The man smiled like he was trying to figure out a hard multiplication in his head. ‘You here with anyone?’ 

‘No.’ 

‘Cool, cool. Are you looking for any-’ 

‘No.’ 

The man leaned forward, bracing his arm over her head so that he bored down toward her face. ‘Got quite a mouth, don’t you.’ He smelled like strong liquor and male frustration. ‘Someone should teach you what to do with-’ 

He gagged, his eyes popping, as Velletta snatched his tongue, holding the disgusting thing between the nails of her thumb and forefinger. 

Her voice was barely a lethal whisper. ‘Listen here, little man, your mortal life will end nine years from now when you are busy harassing another poor woman. You walk out into the road, a garbage truck hits you at 40 miles an hour. 20 tonnes of metal crushes your legs, pelvis and 4th vertebrae. You empty your bladder as your life blood spills onto the tarmac.’ 

His Adam's apple bobbed as she released his tongue, ‘ I should...go…’ the man stumbled backwards. 

A cruel smile twisted over her face. ‘Run along, little man.’ 

As the man stumbled through the crowd, half falling over himself to get away, the pendant around Velletta’s neck crackled.

‘ _ Was that really necessary? _ ’ Steve asked. 

‘ _ YES-’  _ Velletta and Bucky chimed in at the sametime. 

She felt her cheeks heat slightly as she once again scanned the crowd. 

Sam interjected in an urgent voice. ‘ _ Watch it, Vel we’ve got movement by the staircase _ .’ 

He was right. Velletta had to stand on her tiptoes but she saw it, over the heads of the crowd, three huge meatheads with shoulders as broad as a car descended the stairs from the VIP balcony. Each had mean faces and watchful eyes as they made their way through the throng of dancers. 

‘Hey, you-!’ the largest called as they parted the crowd. 

_ ‘If this pig so much as breathes in your direction… _ ’ Bucky growled dangerously, a barely audible rumble over the loud music. 

A flash of metallic by the fire exit caught her eye, Velletta smiled slyly in Bucky’s direction as she replied through the communicator mindful that everyone else could hear. ‘ _ Settle down, Sergeant Barnes. Remember the mission. _ ’ 

‘Hey, you- ‘ before the paw-like hand landed on her shoulder she spun round and fixed the henchman with a glare that could have turned even the bravest men to stone. 

‘I would reconsider touching me if I were you,’ Velletta growled with disdain, her top lip curling. 

The man’s hand dropped to his side but he made a point to his colleagues to fan out around him. ‘Why’s that sweet cheeks? You gonna cat scratch me?’ 

She leaned forward into his space, breathing in the smell of his fear. ‘I am the last Valkyrie, Odin’s warrior and transporter of souls. I have killed and fought my way across three galaxies and left a trail of blood in my wake. You are not even a footnote on the pages of history and yet you are standing my way when the Oracle is expecting me.’ 

He hesitated for a moment, torn between throwing himself at her feet or running for his life. In the end, with a slight incline of his head, he led her through the crowd and up the stairs into the VIP suite. 

**

The padded leather door closed behind her with a thud that sounded final. 

The room she found herself in was an office. A large oak desk filled most of the space and CCTV screens covered an entire wall, they showed pictures of patrons on the dance floor and the street outside. Another door, a black door, sat behind the desk, inscribed with runes and symbols, dread suddenly settled in Velletta’s stomach. 

She wanted to reach for her pendant, she wanted to draw her knife, she wanted to back away and flee but she couldn’t, rooted to the spot her feet refused to move. 

All her strength drained out of her bones…leaving her cold, trembling….Wrongness. There was a primal sense of wrongness in the very air that she breathed. Walking too close to the edge, broken glass, a feral beast scenting blood...every instinct she had told her to run for her life. 

‘How long did it take for you to break I wonder?’ A cold, quiet voice, drifted from behind the desk to where she stood. 

A hand on the back of her neck forced her forwards. His words coiled around her mind like a rope around her throat. 

‘ Left all alone in that cell to rot. Day and night, with the darkness pressing in on you, how often did you beg to die? How often did you offer your body as payment...I wonder if anyone took you up on that offer.’ 

Velletta’s chest tightened as a pair of intelligent eyes watched her every movement. Thin and sharp and clever, the Oracle sat behind the desk with his fingers steepled under his chin and his eyes unblinking, contracting into narrow slits like a cat’s. From within the dense thicket of blonde hair, two pointed horns curled around his face like a ram, each tip capped with gold. 

‘Human’s need company. They go a little crazy without it. They fear to be alone, they fear the darkness- cowering away from it. How long did it take for you to cower?’ The Oracle licked his lips, a long forked tongue skimming over a set of jagged teeth in a mouth that was too wide for any normal person. When he opened his mouth the corners of his lips nearly touched his ears, like a leering set of jaws. 

‘I’m looking for a way back-,’ her voice sounded loud in her ears, her hammering heart pounded against her ribcage as if it was trying to beat itself to death. ‘ I heard you could help me.’ 

‘To Decimation?!’ The Oracle barked with bitter laughter. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ 

Her voice was betrayed by the slightest tremble. ‘Do you know where I can find them or not?’ 

The Oracle raked her with an insolent look before turning towards a tray of drinks in the corner of the room. He poured two generous glasses of amber liquid and pushed one into her hands but did not step back. 

Brushing his horn against the side of her face, his forked tongue flicking out of his mouth to taste her scent. ‘The last thing I heard was that you were with the Avengers. That you were real tight with them.’ 

His breath on her cheek made her want to recoil but Velletta forced herself to huff as she pretended to sip her drink. ‘I see in your case the apple did fall far from the tree. Brains aren’t your strong suit, are they?’ 

‘Enlighten me then, why are you here?’ He asked snidely, moving to lean against his desk. 

‘ If I don’t, you won’t tell me where Decimation is.’ It wasn’t a question, they both knew it. 

In response he swirled the ice in his drink. 

The words turned to ash in her mouth. ‘I am enacting a plan that has been decades in the making. If successful, it will rewrite the world as we know it and bring about a painful end to the Avengers.’ 

A smile split over his face as if it was joyous news. ‘He actually did it. My father turned you.’ 

‘I just want to get off this planet and Decimation is the quickest way for me to do that,’ Velletta retorted quickly, sounding braver than she felt. 

‘What do you know of my father?’ 

‘Enough.’

‘Humour me,’ he replied with a grim smile.

‘He was a chemist,’ she grasped at straws, ‘He always felt like he was meant for greater things.’ 

The Oracle smiled humorlessly. ‘He was that. Most definitely a dreamer.’ It was not meant kindly. ‘But you are right, his chemistry would have changed the world. I myself am following in his footsteps, finishing what he started so long ago-,’ the Oracles voice drifted off as he looked, unseeing into the distance as if caught in a memory. He set down his drink and grabbed Velletta’s hand before she could step back. ‘ Let me show you.’ 

Dread filled her as the black rune door swung open with a gesture from the Oracle. Noise and hot darkness assaulted her, intense sweet smoke. She reeled back, her senses suddenly assaulted and stinging from the heady mix. As she was drawn further into the backrooms, she spied dark corners and entwined bodies, things that didn’t make any sense- a man with a dog’s head pouring a jug of blood down his gullet, figures with wings, several sets of limbs, gnawing on bones…. Velletta stumbled, her head pounding but the Oracles hand on her wrist was vice like, branding her skin in his grip. 

Through another hallway, they descended a set of stairs that opened up into what could have been another club. Except this one was certainly members only. Even in the dim light, Velletta saw a woman with giant snake tails serving drinks that spat sparks, a man with green fish scales crooned on a raised stage while goblin-like creatures raced through people’s legs. 

Before she knew it, a spot light shone in Velletta’s face, blinding her as the Oracle smiled and waved at his adoring crowd. A microphone was passed over, with a jolt and a foggy head, Velletta realised she was standing on stage. She blinked stupidly into the light. 

‘Ladies, gentlemen and demons,-’ the Oracle paused for the crowd's applause. ‘Tonight, I have a special treat for you all that is _ just to die for!’  _

Velletta looked around wildly, trying to stop the panic rising in her stomach. She reached for her pendant and cast a thought into it.  _ ‘Help, I need help!’ _

The Oracle’s sharp teeth flashed in the spotlight. ‘Not only do we have the powerful- the beautiful- the last Valkyrie with us tonight-,’ 

The Oracle forced her hand up to wave, his fingers pinching her skin. 

‘But I have another surprise which I am also very excited to share with you….’ With a snap of his fingers, spotlights illuminated the far corner of the club. ‘Let me introduce you to the Avengers. Give them a warm welcome.’

Velletta’s blood turned to ice in her veins. 

Steve, Dr Glass, Sam, Agent Hill, Bucky…. Bathed in light, each wreathed in chains that glowed red hot. Their screams were somehow silenced as they withered and fought to break free. 

Distantly she heard the roar of the crowd, the jeers and the animalistic snarls, but it all fell away as her friends tried to reach out to her with hands that were slowly being branded. 

‘Oracle!’ Recklessness, stupidity, call it whatever you like but Velletta could not stand by and let her friends die. 

‘You have something to say Valkyrie?’ The Oracle asked, his voice as sickly sweet. 

It was a long shot. 

‘As much as I would love to disembowel that lot of them, leave the bloodletting to the butchers. They are warriors-,’ she turned to the crowd and appealed to their blood lust. ‘..and warriors deserve to die like warriors.’ 

With a cold glare, The Oracle pulled the microphone away from his mouth as the crowd roared in approval. ‘Darlin’ Velletta, the last Valkyrie, none of you shall be leaving here alive.’ 

‘Oracle!’ Velletta snarled, whipping her knife into her hand just as two huge trolls grabbed her. Their tusks were gnarled, their breath reeking and they dared to lay hands on her. 

Death came on swift wings. Troll number one collapsed like a sack of potatoes, his throat slit ear to ear like a gaping, scarlett smile. Troll number two, screamed and threw himself off the stage, both eyes slashed to ribbons. 

Velletta flicked the blood of her hands and stepped towards The Oracle. She raked him with heated glare. ‘You will do well to remember that I am the last of my kind. I have no family, no relatives and therefore very few things to live for. Don’t get in my way again, or you will find out once and for all which of us wields the most powerful sword.’ 

There was a baulk of laughter, movement on her left to her that spiders legs, twisted limbs and sets of teeth were pulling themselves up onto the stage, but with her eyes fixed on the leering face of The Oracle, she didn’t see the cage of fire being pulled over her eyes or the syringe being plunged into her back. 

The world twisted and warped around her, behind the many laughing voices The Oracles sounded crystal clear. ‘Take them to the cage.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> jörð bifask- world shaker
> 
> Thanks again for reading!
> 
> Please comment and let me know what you guys think.  
> I'm also in the market for a beta if anyone is interested.


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